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Wonderful character development!

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A mockumentary about a New Zealand filmmaker from the silent era being rediscovered. I actually hesitate to call this a "mockumentary" because it's more clever than funny. There are a few low-key gags (mostly centered around a hack vaudevillian named "Stan the Man") but they're not really that amusing. Still, it is a clever production, and Peter Jackson (along with co-director Costa Botes) has an admirable commitment to authenticity. The films are aged beautifully and could definitely pass as forgotten relics. I don't know if cameos from Harvey Weinstein and Sam Neill add all that much verisimilitude, but I could certainly see Leonard Maltin being involved in a documentary like this. I did wonder if there might be a sort of New Zealand inferiority complex at play here, with Jackson and company (consciously or not) wanting to invent a cinematic Kiwi legend of their own. It's a fun little movie that looks like it was fun to make.

The famous director, Peter Jackson, created a very dry and realistic mockumentary about a fictional movie pioneer from New Zealand. And, since he filmed it in such a serious manner, audiences who saw it didn't realize it was all a put-on. My oldest daughter says this is because the viewers were stupid, but frankly considering how realistic it all appeared, I can understand their confusion. He does not at any time relent to humor--always keeping the illusion that it's a real documentary. Even the wonderful "Zelig" is obviously a put-on (unless you are, like my daughter say, a 'total idiot'). Now this creates a bit of a problem. While this dry and realistic approach makes the film more remarkable for folks like me to watch, it also makes it pretty boring and unwatchable for the average viewer. I mean, I understood it was a put-on because I am a huge student of silent movies--but how many people today are?! And how many will even appreciate this? Not many, I assume. If you are a total film nut, then this is your film--otherwise, you'll probably find it tough going.By the way, what's wrong with Leonard Maltin's voice in this film? It sounds barely like him--was he sick?

Documentary is all about taking real life and shaping it into a story. 'Forgotten Silver' suggests that real part doesn't even have to be real, as long as the story's good.I watched this again tonight - probably the 4th or 5th time I've seen it since it was first screened as an (allegedly) true doco back in 1996. Despite knowing the whole thing was cod, I was quite surprised to find tears in my eyes as NZ pioneer film-maker Colin McKenzie accidentally filmed his own death in Spain, so drawn was I into the story.Once you strip away the hype over the hoax factor, what's left is just a great story about a struggling film maker facing and almost overcoming insurmountable obstacles to create a work of mad genius. Anyone expecting belly laughs from 'Forgotten Silver' is probably going to be disappointed, because viewed as a story, this isn't a comedy - it's a tragedy. It's no wonder so many people were sucked into believing it when it first screened - the Colin McKenzie saga has an emotional depth which is heartbreaking.Bonus points for a brilliant musical score, some superb technical effects (especially the corroded, bubbling, self-destructing nitrate film; most filmmakers would have settled for a couple of cliché tramlines to make the footage look old), and the gorgeous Thomas Robbins as Colin McKenzie.

****Warning, Spoilers*******Hopefully the success of Lord of the Rings will encourage more people to seek out this wonderful 1995 mockumentary. This short film not only showcases Peter Jackson's versatility as a director, but also acts as a tribute to the early pioneers of cimema. Yes, the whole thing is one big lie, but it's a lie which may just get casual viewers interested in the work of the likes of D.W. Griffith and the Lumiere brothers, who are regularly namechecked in the film.At first sight, the story of New Zealand film pioneer Colin McKenzie is completely convincing. Details of his life are intercut with real historical events such as the First World War and the Spanish Civil War. The footage from McKenzie's films looks authentically degraded, just as if it had been shot on primitive cameras a century ago. Peter Jackson and co narrate the story in a completely straight, documentary style, while the inclusion of interviews with real life industry figures such as Harvey Weinstein, Leonard Maltin and Sam Neil lends the film an air of absolute authenticity (so much so that, as the DVD making-of reveals, for 24 hours after the initial showing of the film on TV, New Zealand thought it had discovered a lost national hero). But then little doubts start to creep in, and this is where much of the humour is. To say any more would be to spoil it, but needless to say much of the fun in Forgotten Silver comes from the fact that Peter Jackson and Costa Botes were so successful in pulling the wool over everyone's eyes while at the same time including absolutely outrageous details in McKenzie's life.As a side note, it's interesting to note the similarities between McKenzie's epic production of Salome and Peter Jackson's real life epic of The Lord of the Rings, which was four years away from filming at the time of Forgotten Silver's release. Salome, the production of which makes the shooting of Apocalypse Now seem like the filming of an average episode of Friends, took it's creator five years to film, featured epic battle sequences and required a huge cast and the construction of massive sets in the New Zealand country side. Sound familiar? If nothing else, this is a spooky foreshadowing of Jackson's later career in one of his own films. Then again, maybe Jackson had always wanted to make an epic, but at that stage in his career had to settle for a fake one.Either way, Forgotten Silver is an utterly delightful, charming hoax which surely deserves a wider audience.Rating - 8/10