CARGO and Short Interview with Laura Waddington by Ki Wong
CARGO
She was the only young woman on a large ship full of Romanian and Filipino sailors headed for the Middle East. During the six weeks that she spent on board, even when the ship was moored in a passing port, the crew members were not allowed to disembark. They could only play cards, sing songs or tell stories to kill time, their lives monotonous and dull. Sometimes she would secretly film the life of the sailors: a man stealing wood on the dock, a sailor fishing from an abandoned pier, a seaman begging the captain to take him back to his country… The entire film was blurry, the slowed down video and freeze frames made the whole journey feel like a poetic vision. The young woman recounted her emotions, and the stories that she heard and observed from start to finish, allowing the audience to wander between reality and inner world. The uncertain and forgotten state in which the crew members lived, created a yearning in people for the peace and stability of days on land. She had always imagined that going to sea meant freedom but once surrounded by cargo and huge shipping containers, she realized that she hasn’t really visited any place at all. This was a journey without a destination.
We watched through the young woman’s eyes: a group of people live out a tedious life in insecure surroundings. The screen shook, the camera moved slowly, the photographic effects blurred the rhythm of their activities. The images trailed and stuttered, making it difficult to determine whether they were unfolding quickly or slowly. Unwavering and understated, even the most exciting of scenes appeared insignificant: the furtiveness of a theft no different from the leisurely fishing and the singing and dancing, just images captured by a lens. What could be read in the depiction of the crew’s life was the director’s perplexity. In the images, the actors were playing supporting roles, the central protagonist, the one carrying the camera, hidden behind the screen.
Ki Wong
巨輪上都是羅馬尼亞籍及菲律賓船員，就只有她一個女孩子，目的地是中東。在船上的六個星期，縱使船停泊在途徑的碼頭，船員都不被允許下船，他們唯有玩玩牌，唱唱歌或說說故事來打發時間，生活顯得乏味困局。有些時候她偷偷拍下了船員的生活情況：一個在碼頭偷木的男人/水手下船到廢置的碼頭釣魚/乞求船長載他回國的人…全片影像模模糊糊，將錄影減速或定格，富有詩意地描述整個旅程，女孩從頭到尾都旁述著她的心情及所見所聽的故事，使觀眾游走在現實和內在世界。片段中船員不隱定及被遺忘似的生活狀態，使人渴望那踏在地上的安隱日子。一直以為出海是自由的她，被一件件巨大的貨櫃箱包圍時，察覺到原來什麼地方也不曾到過，這是一個沒有目的地的旅程。
從女孩的眼睛看去，是一群動盪環境中過著平穩生活的人們。畫面搖晃，鏡頭緩慢移動，攝影特效模糊了活動節奏，影像拖著長長的尾巴，似斷未斷的難以確定是快是慢。穩定淡然，再刺激的場面都微不足道；偷竊的鬼祟跟釣魚的悠閒無異，載歌載舞僅是鏡頭的留影。從船員的生活讀到的是導演的納悶，畫面內的似是配角、主角執著攝錄機，藏在螢幕後。
Laura Waddington:
For the last few years, I have been filming with a small DV camera. I love the freedom that this camera gives me to work alone. In my films, I am trying just to look at the world in a simple way. When I am shooting, I film instinctively, going towards the things that touch me without thinking too much about what the final form of the film will be. The people I film are often living in a situation on the edge of things – the sailors on a cargo ship in CARGO or the Iraqi and Afghan refugees secretly crossing Europe, whom I am presently filming for my film Border. During the shoot, I live in a nomadic way often not knowing in which country I will be the next week or what I will find. Often, I build up very intense bonds with people who I will probably never see again. I think it is a huge privilege to make films in this way. I feel I get to meet so many people and discover the world from a different point of view. I do not think much about the length of the film I am making. CARGO was a short film and Border will probably be long. I believe each film has its own length and that you cannot impose a length on it. The advantage of making short films is that since they cost less, producers are more open to experimentation. When I go to short film festivals, I am often amazed by the large variety of films from so many different places.
Wong, Ki. “Interview with Laura Waddington” Cream Magazine, Hongkong 2002, pp. 142
(With thanks to Suky Gu for co-ordinating the English translation)