Instant Dreams (2017)

Directed by: Willem Baptist | 91 minutes | documentary | Starring: Stefanie Schneider, Stephen Herchen, Chris Bonanos, Edwin H.Land, Ayana JJ, Caitlin Fowler, Angela Riccio, Udo Kier

The Polaroid camera occupies a special place in analog photography. Whether or not you own such an instant camera, chances are you’ve been snapped with it and seen such an iconic looking photo (with the well-known and often copied white frame around) in a box of old memorabilia or photo album. The closure of the Polaroid factories and the decision of the management to stop making instant film in 2008 felt like a punch in the stomach for many enthusiasts. The remaining stocks were eagerly bought up and later traded on sites like E-bay for prices that went up countless times. The documentary ‘Instant Dreams’ by the Dutch Willem Baptist offers the viewer an artistic glimpse into the lives of four Polaroid fans.

The emphasis in ‘Instant Dreams’ is mainly on that ‘artistic’ from the previous sentence. Those who expect a somewhat dry, but well-organized documentary about the rise and fall of the famous brand will be disappointed. Baptist has focused on four people in his documentary, choosing Christopher Banos, who wrote a book about Polaroid and is in possession of many Polaroid artifacts that belonged to the visionary co-Polaroid founder Edwin Land himself and Stephen Herchen, who has worked at Polaroid all his life and now works at Polaroid Originals (formerly Impossible Project), is definitely defensible. The fragments with the artistic photographer Stefanie Schneider are also understandable in themselves, because through her the filmmaker is able to show what kind of feeling a Polaroid photo produces or can evoke. But the scenes with the Japanese lady addicted to her iPhone seem to add little to a large part of the documentary, even at odds with the Polaroid experience and when it turns out at the end what the intention was, it feels a bit anticlimactic.

At times, the psychedelic animation scenes – in bright colors and with an appropriate score – are reminiscent of the much-discussed eighth episode of ‘Twin Peaks’ (2017). But unfortunately it doesn’t make such a crushing impression here. ‘Instant Dreams’ lacks a clear structure and coherence. The images are absolutely beautiful and the information you get is – if you are interested in photography of course – fascinating, but often you would like a little more depth and background information. At its best, ‘Instant Dreams’ is a tantalizing, visually appealing documentary that conveys the love and magic of the subject well, but it didn’t turn out to be the ultimate Polaroid film. The fact that that was not the maker’s goal either does not detract from the viewer’s slight disappointment.