Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Martin Teller A mockumentary about a New Zealand filmmaker from the silent era being rediscovered. I actually hesitate to call this a "mockumentary" because it's more clever than funny. There are a few low-key gags (mostly centered around a hack vaudevillian named "Stan the Man") but they're not really that amusing. Still, it is a clever production, and Peter Jackson (along with co-director Costa Botes) has an admirable commitment to authenticity. The films are aged beautifully and could definitely pass as forgotten relics. I don't know if cameos from Harvey Weinstein and Sam Neill add all that much verisimilitude, but I could certainly see Leonard Maltin being involved in a documentary like this. I did wonder if there might be a sort of New Zealand inferiority complex at play here, with Jackson and company (consciously or not) wanting to invent a cinematic Kiwi legend of their own. It's a fun little movie that looks like it was fun to make.

tomimt Peter Jackson and Costa Boeates decided to make this great mockumentary about a man called Colin McKenzie, a man who invented such things as color film, audio film and above all, made the first full length feature movie.Apparently it was quite a successful hoax in New Zealand, people really did buy it. And I really can't blame them, as most of the fabricated film material really looks like almost hundred years old, almost destroyed film.And there are some very convincing famous film people, like Sam Neil, telling their knowledge of this McKenzie.Even the tone of the film isn't actually very funny, even thought there are some things in it that are so absurd, that they make you laugh.Over all well made mockumentary.

Chris Peterson Documentary is all about taking real life and shaping it into a story. 'Forgotten Silver' suggests that real part doesn't even have to be real, as long as the story's good.I watched this again tonight - probably the 4th or 5th time I've seen it since it was first screened as an (allegedly) true doco back in 1996. Despite knowing the whole thing was cod, I was quite surprised to find tears in my eyes as NZ pioneer film-maker Colin McKenzie accidentally filmed his own death in Spain, so drawn was I into the story.Once you strip away the hype over the hoax factor, what's left is just a great story about a struggling film maker facing and almost overcoming insurmountable obstacles to create a work of mad genius. Anyone expecting belly laughs from 'Forgotten Silver' is probably going to be disappointed, because viewed as a story, this isn't a comedy - it's a tragedy. It's no wonder so many people were sucked into believing it when it first screened - the Colin McKenzie saga has an emotional depth which is heartbreaking.Bonus points for a brilliant musical score, some superb technical effects (especially the corroded, bubbling, self-destructing nitrate film; most filmmakers would have settled for a couple of cliché tramlines to make the footage look old), and the gorgeous Thomas Robbins as Colin McKenzie.

tedg Spoilers herein.In 1988, Peter Greenaway made a little film called `Death in the Seine.' Filmmakers have long played with notions of created reality, but this was a clever take: real people drowned in the Seine during a period that by political accidents was erased from the calendar. But we have the reports of the coroner for these anonymous people. By `showing' them, Greenaway was reinvesting their lives with reality. An amazing idea, made sweeter by having the `corpses' obviously be alive.In 1994, film enthusiast Peter Jackson did much the same thing with `Heavenly Creatures.' He took a real story about a famous but now forgotten case and turned it into an essay on constructed film reality. In his case, this involved Orson Welles and an ersatz Camelot named Borovnia (borrow nvia).To judge from that film, he took the matter seriously. To judge from this one, he took it personally. The `creatures' weren't the girls, instead the fictitious beings they animated. The next year he made this film with himself as the animator. In both cases, he plays with the nature of writing. He references Welles, of course, and `Picnic at Hanging Rock,' of course. But most of all he plays under the kiwi skin with all sorts of inside jokes to exploit the national foible.But there's enough for the rest of us, especially if you love movies. He says this is just a joke, and he may even believe it. But there's plenty of intelligent foolery here: just in the `Salome' section. This is a recreation using exclusively modern idioms. This is post- 'Battleship Potemkin' and more obviously post- `Godfather.'It is as if we were given a Shakespeare play that mentioned watergate. The one really big goof is Harvey Weinstein (combined with industry shill Leonard Maltin). They could as easily have been talking about `Lord of the Rings:' huge marvelous cities in New Zealand, stock that steals 2000 eggs, deliberate pies in the face, and even the soap opera about our poor sojourner. Rings or films, it is all magic.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.