Instant Favorite.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Early film history geeks will get the most out of this mockumentary. Forgotten Silver (1995) follows the misadventures of fictional film genius Colin McKenzie, who managed to pioneer sound film, color film, aviation, "Candid Camera" style shenanigans, and the feature film, only to never get his due.The presence of real archivists and historians complete the illusion that what we are watching is legit. The footage of the films are less convincing, much too mannered even by the heightened standards of the 1910s and 1920s. Much of the biography is hilarious too, underlined by a wry sense of silly humor, almost Forrest Gump like in the intersections of fiction and fact, like the changes the Soviet Union censors wanted to make to McKenzie's biblical epic or how he invented the close-up because of his infatuation with an actress.Still, my fellow film history nerds will get a big chuckle out of this!

Maybe i have become a biased Peter Jackson fan. The LOTR movies i consider the greatest achievement in the history of film. But this little gem is just so well crafted. I was lucky to just stumble upon it while zapping through the channels some 8-9 years ago. Thinking this was an interesting documentary about a person i had never heard of before (always been a great fan of documentaries). I guess this is an unlikely, but perfect, situation to watch it in. Thinking it is for real. As the movie went along, i frequently was going "incredible - why have i not heard of this man before" .. and a few times i went "this cant be true". But at exactly those moments a famous person (like Sam Neil) pops up and explain about this person as if he did exist, which kept me believe the story. I have to admit .. i believed the story till the very end. This was one of the great moments in my movie watching "career". I was lucky i saw it as if it was real. Knowing that it is fake i guess makes it at lot less interesting.

At first I thought Forgotten Silver was a joke, but I changed my mind when I saw that one of the greatest of contemporary film historians and critics, Leonard Maltin, had contributed his insights to the story of film pioneer Colin McKenzie. It's an amazing story of how an inspired and dedicated film genius, located in New Zealand, anticipated and invented so many of the film techniques we take for granted now. It's hard to comprehend how this one man gave us such things as steam-powered projection systems, the first tracking shot, the first example of a talking movie, the first color film, the first close-up. He was naive, yes, but with the naiveté of the innocent. The first talking movie, for instance, featured Chinese day laborers speaking their native tongue. Mr. McKenzie, regrettably, neglected to provide sub-titles. While New Zealand movie goers stayed away in droves, the purity of his intent is beyond question. He was an unsung genius who had the courage of his beliefs. He was there filming man's first heavier-than-air flight. He invented a small motion picture camera which, in partnership with Stan the Man, anticipated the spontaneous hilarity of Candid Camera. For those, like me, who had never heard of Stan the Man, Stan was an inspired silent comic who specialized in attacking the unsuspecting. His pie in the face gag featuring the New Zealand prime minister resulted in Mr. McKenzie's filmed reaction of the prime minister's police escort, which was the forebear of the Rodney King cinema verite. McKenzie's superlative creative achievement, of course, was his three-hour film of Salome. He built a vast city in the jungles of New Zealand (which was newly discovered and is being excavated). It took him years to achieve the financing and it resulted in a deep, permanent personal tragedy. Yet the film, newly restored, reaffirmed not only Mr. McKenzie's vision, but also strengthened so many of our feelings about silent films. Harvey Weinstein, then chairman of Miramax, reaffirmed Mr. McKenzie's genius and emphasized how happy Mr. McKenzie would be that Mr. Weinstein himself insisted that an hour be cut from the restored film. Colin McKenzie was an unsung genius who periodically would disappear, then reemerge with new inventions and passions to over-awe those of us who now are familiar with his extraordinary accomplishments. Yet no one really knew him. His inventions never led to acclaim or fortune. His disappointments were great. His legacy, in fact, was accidentally found in a locked chest in an old shed at the bottom of his widow's garden. There, two young filmmakers, Peter Jackson and Costa Botes, found reel after reel of film, stored and long forgotten in rusting containers. If it hadn't been for this chance discovery, we might never have learned of Mr. McKenzie's transforming impact on film making. Mr. McKenzie died tragically during the Spanish Civil War, shot while trying to rescue a wounded soldier. How deeply inspiring it would be if those of us who love film could watch, and re-watch, and watch again, D. W. Griffith, Alfred Hitchcock, Louis B. Mayer or F. W. Murnau as they died. Thanks to the foresight of Mr. McKenzie, who set up his camera to film his rescue attempt, we can with this New Zealand...no, this world...genius of film. He died as he lived...with his sprockets turning. Despite the deteriorated condition of so much of Mr. McKenzie's film record, Jackson and Botes have put together a compelling documentary. They wisely intersperse contemporary evaluations of Mr. McKenzie's achievements and the recollections of his widow with many examples of Mr. McKenzie's pioneering work. But what of the young filmmakers themselves, who brought us the McKenzie story? Little is known of Botes. Jackson, however, can be founded occasionally working on the fringes of film-making. His innovative use of New Zealand middle school students to film a fantasy about middle earth was well received by the students' parents. Unfortunately, his attempt to use advanced technology to solve the problem of filming a story featuring a gorilla which had been fed football steroids met with mixed results. Holding a magnifying glass in front of his camera lens while photographing a chimpanzee and pretending it was a giant ape was too advanced a leap for most movie ticket buyers.

****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