A Personal Vision of the Hong Kong Cityscape in Anson Mak’s Essayistic Documentary Films One Way Street on a Turntable and On the Edge of a Floating City, We Sing

Abstract

This chapter explores Anson Hoi Shan Mak's essayistic documentaries and her personal vision of the Hong Kong cityscape. Like the traditional mainstream documentary, the essay film often focuses on specific issue(s), rather than a fictional plot. However, while straight documentary makers concentrate on the ‘subject’, which is more ‘passive’ than the ‘active subject’ of the fiction film, film essayists opt to treat the subject as a theme ‘in which the subject is a particular development or an interpretation of that theme, and one that has a determining influence upon the form of the film’. The chapter argues that the radicality of Mak's film essays manifests itself both in a highly original aesthetics and in a critical perspective on Hong Kong. The independent filmmaker's discourse is articulated in a subtle way, but her political stance is, however, expressed firmly, especially in the more recent On the Edge of a Floating City, We Sing (2012).