Let Us Persevere in What We Have Resolved Before We Forget (2013)

At just twenty minutes long, Let Us Persevere in What We Have Resolved Before We Forget (2013) is the sort of film that would pass by entirely unnoticed were it not for the questions it quietly provokes about what documentary filmmaking is actually for. Shot on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, an archipelago nation in Melanesia sitting northeast of Australia, it centres on the so-called John Frum cargo cult, a religious movement whose followers have, for decades, awaited the return of a messianic figure known as John. The belief system, which blends Christian influences with indigenous Melanesian tradition, has long fascinated anthropologists and outsiders alike, and it lends the film its title, a phrase that carries the weight of ritual repetition without ever quite explaining itself. Tanna itself is no stranger to film crews, having attracted documentary interest for years precisely because its communities have held on to traditional ways of life with a determination that sits oddly alongside the pressures of the modern world. None of that backstory is handed to you here, mind.

The film was produced through Rouge International, the French production company with a track record of backing formally adventurous, geographically far-flung work. Ben Russell, the American artist and filmmaker behind the camera, has built a reputation over many years operating at the boundary between ethnographic film, gallery installation and experimental cinema. His work tends to prioritise sensory experience over argument, atmosphere over information, and this short sits squarely within that approach. Shot on 16mm film, it carries the textured, analogue quality that immediately separates it from the slick, high-definition aesthetic of most contemporary documentary. For those interested in other French-produced films that take unconventional approaches to their subjects, there is some useful comparison to be drawn with Little by Little and with Mustang, both of which sit in that space where story and document blur into each other. Isaac Wan is credited as the principal cast, though calling anyone in a film like this a "cast member" in the traditional sense feels slightly awkward given the observational, non-interventionist nature of what Russell is doing.

In terms of where it sits among documentary shorts of the early 2010s, it belongs to a loose tradition of films more interested in duration and presence than in revelation or argument. If you have spent any time with films like Candomblé in Togo, another documentary concerned with ritual and spiritual practice, or the altogether different but equally modest Nom Tèw, you will have a reasonable sense of the territory. These are films that ask you to adjust your expectations before the first frame has passed, and Russell's short is no different in that respect.

A-Z World Movie Tour Vanuatu https://vimeo.com/60100859?share=copy Let Us Persevere in What We Have Resolved Before We Forget by Ben Russell is less a film and more an act of quiet observation, minimalist to the point of near-invisibility. Shot on location in Vanuatu, it unfolds in long, static takes with no narration, no interviews, no music, and almost no dialogue. Instead, we’re given moments: a man carving wood, children walking barefoot down a jungle path, villagers tending fires, hands shaping food, smoke rising into the humid air. It feels less like a documentary and more like stumbling upon someone’s home movies, intimate, unguarded, but not quite meant for an audience. There’s beauty in its restraint. The 16mm film grain, the natural light, the unhurried pace, it all creates a meditative, almost sacred atmosphere. You can feel the humidity, hear the distant waves, sense the rhythm of daily life unfolding without performance or pretence. In that way, it succeeds as an ethnographic tone poem, resisting exoticism and instead offering presence. But that same minimalism makes it difficult to connect. With no context or narrative thread, it risks feeling aimless, even voyeuristic, like you’re intruding on lives without ever being invited in. It’s not about anything in the traditional sense, which may be the point, but also makes it hard to engage beyond surface-level appreciation. Visually poetic and respectfully made, but so restrained it borders on inaccessible. A sensory experience, not a story. Best approached as a mood piece, not a film.

I keep coming back to that word "inaccessible", because it feels honest rather than dismissive. There is something genuinely respectful in what Russell does here, refusing to package Tannese life into something palatable for a Western audience, resisting the urge to explain or contextualise or, worse, romanticise. And yet respect and engagement are not the same thing, and a film can be admirably made and still leave you at arm's length. For me, the 16mm grain and the long silences linger in the memory in the way a half-remembered photograph does, present but not quite graspable. Whether that is enough depends entirely on what you are willing to bring to it. Twenty minutes is not a huge investment, but it does ask you to meet it more than halfway. Some films earn that ask; some simply assume it.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 2013  | Watched: 2025-09-15

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