|
|
 I was immediately attracted to the funny premise of my documentary, but it was the grey area between belief and disbelief that made me fall in love with its story. When I tell people that I sent a stripper, as me, to my ten-year high school reunion, I am (with few exceptions) met with incredible enthusiasm, generous support, and a barrage of questions. The most consistent is, "Did you go down to the reunion at the end and expose the real you?" Absolutely not. If anything, I wanted to leave people wondering whether that was really me, or not. I guessed that some people would believe it, some people wouldn't but most would be somewhat unsure. It was this "shadow of a doubt" I was most interested in. Could it be me? Does it matter? Do they care? There was a lot of unexplored ideological space between RSVP'ing 'Yes' and 'No,' between trying to impress your peers and removing yourself from judgment, and I seem to have found it. As a comedy writer, I believe that humor is powerful. Laughter is the best way that I know to get people to re-think what they think they think. With this film I was able to take a familiar situation—a high school reunion—which most people simply accept without question as a part of life, and turn it on its head, like the incongruous images in a Magritte painting, but funny. I am not removed from this notion of introspection. Through the post-production process, I more than anyone have been forced to take out my Innermost Thoughts And Feelings Microscope and do some serious mental wrestling. I had to re-examine my motivation for making this movie, who I am, where I come from, how it has shaped me, and my priorities. I unsuspectingly opened a huge can of personal and proverbial worms and myself up to intense scrutiny, while simultaneously tapping into a highly relatable idea. The kind of dialogue this piece tends to engender in people no matter what their experience with high school, never ceases to astonish me. From my current vantage point on the far-side of the finish line, if I was offered a ride in a Film-making Time Machine, the only thing I would do differently would be to invest even more of myself in it, earlier. -Andrea Wachner |
 |
|
|
|