The Participatory Mode and the Reflexive mode both actively acknowledge that they are films but do it in different ways and to accomplish different means.

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The Participatory Mode is not afraid to acknowledge the artifice of the environment which is the camera and the person behind it. The documentarian participates with the environment and becomes an active part of the film. The person behind the camera is relevant to the audience who watches the film. This active relationship that the documentarian has with the documentary emphasizes the truth of what happens in the moment on camera rather than an absolute or untampered truth, and allows new truths to be revealed that might not have ever been realized if there wasn’t a camera there in the first place.

 

For instance, Ross McElwee may have never realized he struggles with commitment in relationships if he didn’t allow himself to film his interactions with these women for his film, Sherman’s March. Or maybe he wouldn’t have ever even met most of them if he didn’t. The camera for McElwee almost becomes an extension of McElwee himself, as he mentions in the film in a VO of him walking with the camera and as some of the women in the film state that he talks better when he has his camera out.

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McElwee also engages with his film by putting a voiceover over shots where he forgot to record sound, telling the audience “here, I forgot to record the sound”, rather than throwing out the clip as unusable. The acknowledgement of the artifice in this case is used more so for humor while also driving the narrative along and also showcasing the nature of McElwee as a person instead of falsifying perfection.

 

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The Reflexive Mode acknowledges the artifices within the conventions of documentary filmmaking in attempt to deconstruct the things that hold a film in place. It wants the audience to be aware that it is just a film. It wants the audience to know that it is a representation, and that it is all it can ever be. It is not reality, but a recreation of reality.

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In Surname Viet, Given Name Nam, it becomes increasingly apparent that the women being interviewed on screen are reading scripts, and then a VO confirms it with the audience. The audience becomes conscious that they are watching a film, and it never tries to lure them back in. We as an audience are forced to try to grapple with what the film wants to convey as it knowingly implodes on itself. The captions on screen are completely out of sync with the dialogue and sometimes appear so briefly that it is impossible to follow along if you get distracted for even half a second. It forces you to give all of your attention to the film. The film tries to make you pay attention and question what can be considered truth; it tries to make you wonder if you can trust any of the experiences in the film because it wants you to realize truth is more than an emotion or a feeling.

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This documentary actively acknowledges that it is a documentary, but the documentarian almost seems absent. I don’t know if she ever appears on camera. If she does, it surely was not in the way McElwee does. It seems to acknowledge every aspect of it being a film other than acknowledging the author behind it. It almost feels it tries to divorce itself of the perspective and bias that inherently comes from being behind the camera.