The
Polaroid camera was the original “selfie” device, but it was better. It used
physical chemical film, so each shot meant something. Polaroid film was killed
by the digital revolution, but it rose from the dead because people were not
ready to let go. Instant photo-chemical film gets its due in Willem Baptist’s
quasi-experimental docu-essay, Instant
Dreams (trailer
here), which screened during the 2018 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.
Chris
Bonanos wrote the book on Polaroid. It is called Instant: The Story of Polaroid. He will provide some traditional documentary
background and context, including the creation story. Bonanos is also a Polaroid
user, which meant he was a film hoarder, as well. Stephen Herchen is the chief
technology officer of the Impossible Project, who led an effort to reverse
engineer Polaroid’s one-minute development project. Stefanie Schneider is one
the artists who specialized in Polaroid photography (there were more than you
maybe realized, such as Elsa Dorfman). Ayana JJ is a Japanese musician and
artist, who would appreciate the immediacy old school Polaroid, but must make
do with Polaroid-like pictures produced on a printer featuring the voice of
Werner Herzog.
That
is not the only weird cameo in Instant.
Udo Kier makes an uncredited appearance in one of Schneider’s shoots. That is
enough to forgive some of the film’s slow patches. However, what will really wins
viewer hearts and minds is its unabashed analog love. Let’s be honest: digital
sucks. Willem’s experts make that point pretty clearly.
In
fact, there are some rather provocative ideas in the film, like the contention Polaroid
was demonstrably ahead of its time, at least in a cultural sense. It is also
rather mind-blowing to see a promotional film from the 1970s, in which company
founder Edwin Land pulls a thin black iPhone-looking wallet out of his pocket,
claiming someday every will have a camera that size, at their finger-tips.
There
is nostalgia in Instant Dreams, as
well as an appreciation for Schumpeterian creative destruction. Baptist has a
keen eye for visuals (especially the Tokyo nightscapes) and a cool cerebral
aesthetic. (Weirdly, some of the most banal looking sequences capture Schneider’s
photo-shoots, which include brief nudity.) Regardless, it is a thoughtful, good-looking
film that should have many more stops on the festival circuit following its
screenings at this year’s Slamdance.