Documentary filmmakers use different modes of representation. The various styles adopted in documentary history has intrigued the audience, made them more insightful about the subject and has altered their expectations about documentary films and their real purpose. 

The style of Reflexive mode constructs the nature of the documentary cinema in a way that it sometimes reconstructs the truth to be able to give a dramatic effect to the viewers about the subject of the documentary. Reflexive mode gives a more realistic picture of the hard facts, depicts not only subjects of historical importance but also highlights the issues pertaining to the representation of the subject and constructing the cinema.

The Performative mode on the other hand, involves emotions and social aspect of the cinema and its impact on the audience.  The performative mode focuses on the subjective matter and eliminates objectivity from the cinema thus altering the interpretation of the subject by the audience.  The two modes of cinema making are similar in a way that they encourage participatory form of interviewing by the filmmakers to gather information about the society.  However, they have a distinct effect of the audience perception about the same subject.

Trinh T. Minh-ha’s film Surname Viet Given Name Nam released in 1992, is a display of reflexive mode of documentary where Trinh portrays Vietnamese women and their culture through historical periods such as childhood, youth, adulthood, old age, rituals, and life events such as marriage, domestic events, and funerals. It is a complex representation of Vietnamese women shown playing important roles in the society with power, status and intimacy and who also hailed from different walks of life. In order to capture the real picture of the Vietnamese culture, off-screen interviews staged in the United States were conducted on actresses. Therefore, the reflexive interviews construct the truth and in many scenes the stages and real overlap to give the audience a perception of reality.

Documentary interviewing captures and frame objective reality of the subjects and presents it in a credible way for audience to have confidence in the facts and testimonies provided by the interviewees. In this film, there is no validity of the filmmaker’s subjective point of view that the audience can get emotionally attached to. Hence, it has a reflexive mode of documentary film making as opposed to the performative style. It is more of a realistic representation of information gathered by interacting with staged interviewees from various social-economic backgrounds sharing the real life experiences of women in post war Vietnam.

In the film, Trinh uses techniques of stopping the cinematic flow, in the end, and interviewing the actors about their experience as scripted interviewees. This helps the audience visualize the complexities of behind the scenes shooting and filming a documentary. Similar to Trinh’s Surname Viet Given Name Nam, in reflexive documentaries, filmmakers are involved in the inner construction of the film, by interviewing scripted actors to represent the truth with no display of any emotional involvement whatsoever. This is unlike performative films that are based on emotions of the filmmaker on the subject  that get passed on to the audience who perceives it as reality.

Through the use of interviewing staged actors, the filmmaker Trinh attempts at readjusting the preconceived opinions and reconstructing the assumptions of the audience about the subject. By altering the perception of the audience, she is able to trigger their minds to explore the truth behind the film’s representation and thereby enhance their awareness and expand their knowledge about the subject.