Allison Chhorn’s 'THE PLASTIC HOUSE' blurs the line between Documentary and Fiction

Multi-disciplinary artist and filmmaker, Allison Chhorn’s latest film is a hypnotic and atmospheric offering that teeters between fiction and documentary.

Debuting at Visions du Reel earlier this year, The Plastic House is a re-imagination of Chhorn’s own life working in her parent’s greenhouse. It follows a young woman, played by Chhorn herself, who constructs a solitary reality by imagining what life would be like after the passing of her parents. Absorbed in the slow process of working alone in the family’s greenhouse, she relives shadow memories of her Cambodian mother and father.

Allison Chhorn’s 'THE PLASTIC HOUSE'.JPG — Allison Chhorn’s 'THE PLASTIC HOUSE'

Drawing heavily from her lived experiences, the Adelaide-based filmmaker forwent a formalised process of creating a beat sheet or storyboard, opting instead to let the environment of the greenhouse inspire images which she let marinate in her mind before eventually capturing them on film.

‘For me, it’s really about memory, because it’s my experience of what I remember and what I am thinking about. It’s my experiences re-imagined into a fictional form. I wanted to try and capture that atmosphere and that duration that I felt from being in the greenhouse.’

Sparse on dialogue, The Plastic House leans into its strong visuals and audibly rich sound design to deliver a poetic depiction of the mundane and monotonous rituals in the protagonist’s isolating setting. This isolation is echoed in the execution of the project itself, with Chhorn acting as solo filmmaker, recording the cinematography and sound herself periodically over several years.

While many filmmakers have recently dabbled in solo filmmaking as a result of COVID, this style was a no-brainer for Chhorn, whose background in the visual arts had well-prepared her for creating in isolation. In fact, it wasn’t until her honours year at university that she discovered film as a potential artistic medium.

‘I was specialising in painting, but I was also interested in photography, sculpture and installation. I guess I naturally came to film and realised that it combines all those things. It’s photography, sound design and acting. It combines all these artforms and it was this perfect medium to tell a story through time. Working as an artist or, say, a painter or a sculpture, you predominantly work by yourself and produce everything yourself. The greenhouse was so private. It never occurred to me to invite other people in that space.’

This lone and organic and approach in shooting the 45-minute film results is an effortlessly immersive and visceral experience that authentically encapsulates the slow and repetitive nature of working in her parent’s greenhouse.