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I’ve never seen a movie quite like Sandi Tan’s documentary Shirkers - probably because there aren’t many stories quite like the story told here. When she was nineteen, Sandi Tan and her friends Jasmine and Sophie banded together to film a movie called Shirkers, a surrealist road trip set in their home country Singapore and directed by their film teacher, Georges Cardona. .
After filming wrapped, Cardona took charge of their seventy cans of film. He promised to edit the film; but instead, he disappeared with all their footage, which only resurfaced two decades later. He had died, and when his widow realized what he had left behind, she contacted Tan to return the film to her.
Before I saw the documentary, the summary led me to envision Shirkers as a typical teenage movie project: a bunch of kids messing around with a camera and having a good time. Of course, it would be a terrible violation of trust for a film teacher to run off with the footage for even a casual project - but while Shirkers was a typical teenage project in the generally bonkers nature of the script, it was anything but casual. Tan raised a considerable budget and hired an entire crew. She had hopes, echoed not only by her friends but by other members of the Singapore countercultural arts scene at the time, that Shirkers could jumpstart the Singapore independent film industry. Cardona’s actions come to feel like not only a violation of his pupils’ trust, but of the artistic development of Singapore.
...It does occur to me that, while this is probably an accurate representation of how Tan and company felt after Cardona stole their film, it may not be 100% accurate as a statement about Singaporean film. If Tan interviewed someone and that person said, “We all thought Shirkers was weird vanity project that would sink like a stone,” why include that in the final documentary, you know?
There is a lot of footage from Shirkers in the documentary, though, so viewers can judge for themselves. It’s impossible to know if it would have revolutionized the nascent Singaporean film industry - that sort of thing is dependent on hitting just the right moment, you know? - but it’s such an odd, memorable film, I feel that it would have gained at least some kind of cult following, distribution permitting.
And Cardona, as director, stood to gain just as much as screenwriter Tan and her friends. Why abscond with the project, not only breaking Tan’s trust but squashing his own chance at fame? And why, having stolen it, did he carefully preserve all seventy cans of film for two decades, even as he completed two transoceanic moves? That’s a lot of film to schlep across an ocean.
Of course, these questions are ultimately unanswerable. Even if Cardona was alive, he probably couldn’t answer them himself - because what answer could he possibly offer that would seem sufficient, and satisfying? He’s a black hole: his gravitational pull drags everything into him, and gives nothing back out.
After filming wrapped, Cardona took charge of their seventy cans of film. He promised to edit the film; but instead, he disappeared with all their footage, which only resurfaced two decades later. He had died, and when his widow realized what he had left behind, she contacted Tan to return the film to her.
Before I saw the documentary, the summary led me to envision Shirkers as a typical teenage movie project: a bunch of kids messing around with a camera and having a good time. Of course, it would be a terrible violation of trust for a film teacher to run off with the footage for even a casual project - but while Shirkers was a typical teenage project in the generally bonkers nature of the script, it was anything but casual. Tan raised a considerable budget and hired an entire crew. She had hopes, echoed not only by her friends but by other members of the Singapore countercultural arts scene at the time, that Shirkers could jumpstart the Singapore independent film industry. Cardona’s actions come to feel like not only a violation of his pupils’ trust, but of the artistic development of Singapore.
...It does occur to me that, while this is probably an accurate representation of how Tan and company felt after Cardona stole their film, it may not be 100% accurate as a statement about Singaporean film. If Tan interviewed someone and that person said, “We all thought Shirkers was weird vanity project that would sink like a stone,” why include that in the final documentary, you know?
There is a lot of footage from Shirkers in the documentary, though, so viewers can judge for themselves. It’s impossible to know if it would have revolutionized the nascent Singaporean film industry - that sort of thing is dependent on hitting just the right moment, you know? - but it’s such an odd, memorable film, I feel that it would have gained at least some kind of cult following, distribution permitting.
And Cardona, as director, stood to gain just as much as screenwriter Tan and her friends. Why abscond with the project, not only breaking Tan’s trust but squashing his own chance at fame? And why, having stolen it, did he carefully preserve all seventy cans of film for two decades, even as he completed two transoceanic moves? That’s a lot of film to schlep across an ocean.
Of course, these questions are ultimately unanswerable. Even if Cardona was alive, he probably couldn’t answer them himself - because what answer could he possibly offer that would seem sufficient, and satisfying? He’s a black hole: his gravitational pull drags everything into him, and gives nothing back out.
