VOD film review: The Filmmaker’s House
Review Overview
Direction
8Playfulness
8Reality. Maybe.
8Laurence Boyce | On 26, Jun 2021
Director: Mark Isaacs
Cast: Mark Isaacs
Certificate: 12
Where to watch The Filmmaker’s House online in the UK: BFI Player (subscription) / BFI Player / Apple TV (iTunes) / Prime Video (Buy/Rent) / Google Play / Sky Store
According to Marc Isaacs’ producer near the beginning of documentary The Filmmaker’s House (which originally premiered at Sheffield Doc/Fest), no commissioning editors want documentaries “unless you have crime, death or serial killers”. “So my headline of ordinary people doesn’t really go down too well,” the director blithely replies.
Ordinary people have been Isaacs’ stock in trade throughout his career. His breakthrough 2001 short film Lift saw the director sit inside the lift of a tower block and get the occupants to tell them more about their lives. All White in Barking examined the state of Britain through interviews with its working-class population. Outside the Court grabbed interviews with those outside a court on Holloway Road. Isaacs’ quiet and unassuming nature – given him something in common with Louis Theroux in interview style, if not in content – lets people open up to him, revealing often fascinating and dramatic stories. His work consistently finds that the extraordinary hides within the so-called ordinary.
But with little or no murderers, serial killers or major criminals to interview (most are already booked up by the rest of the world’s documentary makers) Isaacs is finding it difficult to find anyone interested in a new project. So he decides to just film within the confines of his own house.
There’s his Colombian housekeeper Mary who has just lost her mother or his Muslim neighbour Zara who brings him food on Ramadan whilst caring for an ill husband whose presence is only felt by him coughing next door. There’s the homeless man Mikel that Isaacs’ has befriended and now comes round for the comfort of indoors and to talk about his native Slovakia. Let’s not forget the true-blooded Brit and Arsenal-supporting Keith who is there to mend the fence and opine on why he’s glad not to live in London any more.
It’s almost too good to be true: under one roof, Isaac’s manages to assemble a microcosm of the modern world, a bevy of ordinary people whose lives are nothing if not extraordinary, with moments of high drama and revelations (some even from Isaacs), as our protagonists talk about their pasts and hopes for the future.
But it becomes hard to shake the feeling that everything is a little too perfect, that all the elements and dramatic moments are occurring with an almost supernatural ease. A revelation in the final act of the film makes us question everything that we’ve seen, as the entire artifice of “reality” is laid bare.
It’s tempting to see The Filmmaker’s House as a swipe by a frustrated filmmaker at the modern documentary industry. Yet while there are certainly a couple of pointed comments, the entire film is more gentle than that. As we begin to see the true nature of what’s going on, we begin to question how much of it is still real. Our protagonists are still seemingly themselves. Is Isaacs manipulating reality to an unconscionable degree> Or is he merely showing us the strings that are always pulled in works such as this? And if the authenticity of the film is brought into question, does that also mean the authenticity of the characters – and their stories – are also to be doubted?
Crucially, the film never lets you feel unsatisfied when these questions are brought into proceedings and – for all the games that the film plays – there’s still a huge amount of emotional resonance, as ideas about race, hospitality and grief flow throughout the film.
Different from much of Isaacs’ previous films, The Filmmaker’s House is a clever and thought-provoking project, which carefully balances playfulness with emotion and a dash of wit.
The Filmmaker’s House is available now on BFI Player, as part of a £4.99 monthly subscription.