Conspiracy against Capitalism

By Adelina Koh

It's never been my intention to kiss the ass of my audience. - Craig Baldwin

Yet that night, almost everyone in the audience wanted to kiss his. Craig Baldwin made a great entrance when he presented his latest film, Spectres of the Spectrum at Park Auditorium on Feb. 7, 2000.

Who is this Baldwin that we have not seen in Hollywood? He first stirred up the scene with Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies under America. This film was basically about how the Earth, while not only having been invaded by extra-terrestrial beings, was also on its way to being completely taken over, in 99 steps. This process is suggested to be the cause of newsworthy American incidents, like the Roswell N.M incident to the political assassinations in the 60s and political unrest in South America in the 70s. What is significant about this typical sci-fi/conspiracy plot is not so much the theme of doomsday long before the Y2K craze but because it was produced in 1991. The fascinating feat was how it was completely made out of 'found' footage--old 16mm film that was found in trash or 'filler' material from processing labs. Since then, this style has been very much Baldwin's signature.

Spectres of the Spectrum reflects this. If art mirrors life, then Baldwin's brain must be a maze of incredulous but strangely logical thoughts. This is your basic archetypal hero(ine) plot with a gigantic mass of conspiracy theory. At the beginning of the 21st century, the Earth is a wasteland of radioactive ruins. Living creatures are disappearing, including humans; those who have not stumble around like zombies. An independent underground radio station run by Yogi (Sam Kilcoyne) transmits information to the cause of this situation--the monopolization of all kinds of mass media, as well as the Internet, have created a material-hungry environment where people are sucked into theme parks and malls, creating an oppressive "New Electromagnetic Order". The one thing left to conquer is imagination and that shall be done by blasting the sky with particle beams. Yogi's daughter, Boo Boo (Caroline Koebel) discovers the way to save the world from this horrible fate, in a coded message left behind by her recently-deceased grandmother, who worked as an assistant on the live TV program, Science in Action. Being the genius in the show, all Boo Boo needs to do is to travel back in time to decode the message and save the world. While all the names sound highly tongue in cheek, this film is not child's play. Cheesy as the plot sounds, the film is intricately woven with media history.

This film should be watched many times. Watching it once would be like skimming off the cream of milk - the essence is yet to be found. It is a mind-boggling experience, because Baldwin advances a new idea with almost every shot, giving a new meaning to information overload. Yet the plot is still pretty consistent, though here and there he may have included shots he fancied and had to put in. You either try to catch up with the speed of Baldwin's thought or switch off completely and perhaps enjoy the images for what they are. This is definitely not mass entertainment.

If Baldwin had any intention of injecting his own psyche his films, this would probably be the best example of his works. Spectres is different, not only in the sense that it had new footage integrated with the 'found' footage. In Baldwin's words, he opened a space for an enlarged point of view; while in the other works, he concentrated on the larger picture, in this he tried to create "pronouns" and throw "themes to psychological interpretation." One may go as far as to say these are his blatant attempts to change society and comment on the spiral of capitalism in the name of filmmaking.

There is a reason why some brilliant filmmakers never make it big. Maybe because they do not kiss the ass of their audience.

Adelina Koh is a Electronic Broadcast major from Singapore, which is nowhere near China.