A Year Full of Drama (in Estonia)

 Deconstructing a documentary...
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Kay: Selecting a social actor, an early twenties Estonian girl, Alissija, who had virtually never been to a theatre, and then paying her to see a 224 productions in a year and write a review for each, she became a guinea pig for an experiment?
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May: Oh yes. And filming her and her family and friends and handlers for the year, you’d have to say it was an experiment on film. An experimental documentary? A new category of documentary?
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Kay: I think Bill Nichols’ notion of participatory documentary, one in which the filmmaker interacts with the subject covers it.
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May: The filmmaker also included footage of how the film was made: the group who made the film, selecting their subject. Isn’t that what Nichols calls reflexive documentary?
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Kay: You could also argue that it was performative documentary. The filmmaker uses the girl’s year-long journey to explore the essence of Estonian drama.
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Voice-over

Some documentaries defy classical categories. This is one of them, containing elements of Nichols participatory, performative and reflexive modes. It succeeds, multi-modally.

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