Kyrillian
01-31-2011, 01:05 PM
I watched this after hearing the endless hype surrounding it. I had been meaning to watch it for some time since I've seen a lot of positive mentions on blogs I read like Filmdrunk and /Film. I just hadn't been motivated because I am not usually a fan of documentaries. This particular one had 2 types of people I am especially not interested in, vandals and the French.
This film kind of gripped me from the start with Banksy introducing it and his use of voice immodulation :) and hiding his identity. It instantly makes it interesting.
The thing that really drew me in about this documentary was reports that it had a crazy twist, or a movie within the movie. I had never seen a documentary that did anything but attempt to tell the story of a certain subject(s), usually lacking in entertainment but full of reality.
This is where Exit Through the Gift Shop seperates itself from the herd. There is a drastic change of direction in the film that you don't even fully notice until after you've finished it. Once you realize what just happened you almost want to go back and watch it again because it changes everything. It even makes certain parts seem funnier when before it just seemed sad.
The film follows a French expat who is not living in California. He has a habit of filming literally every moment of his life. The film follows him along giving his character his base and then follows him as he embarks on a new obsession, street art.
He jumps in feet first into the street art scene and is just working his way up interviewing artists, following them around, etc. Eventually he needs to find the king of the street art movement, Banksy. This proves difficult since no one knows who Banksy is and Banksy himself is reluctant to be filmed. Eventually he finds him of course.
The movie then shifts to background on Banksy, then Banksy and the frenchman building their relationship. Eventually the frenchman is finally forced to compile all the footage he has on Street art into a documentary he says he's been filming for. So he takes almost a year to compile all of his tens of thousands of hours of footage into a documentary that turns out to be crap. All the street artists thought he was a documentary filmmaker this whole time, now it is clear he is just a loon who likes filming. After seeing this Banksy decides he wants to take a crack at making a documentary from his footage and encourages the frenchman to try actually creating some art instead of filming others'.
This is where the movie changes. The Frenchman dives in headfirst into his new assignment from Banksy and dubs himself Mr. Brainwash. He starts producing art at an alarming rate and none of it is terribly original. It's all stuff he's seen in his years of filming street artists, except he will change a few things and call it his own. He then schedules an art show but has really no idea what he's doing, he just produces a ton of crap art and because they market it as some trendy street art show people show up in the thousands.
After watching it, it all seemed a little weird after Mr. Brainwash showed up but then I read a little about the film after watching it. It is a theory that the whole film is a hoax and in fact an art project by Banksy. Mr. Brainwash becomes kind of the untalented, self-important, elitist artist and it seems as if Banksy is mocking himself by creating him. Of course no one involved with the film will admit it's a hoax and that just adds to the mystery.
I'm giving it a 5/5 because I can't say it's anything like I've ever seen before and I am thouroughly considering watching it again.
This film kind of gripped me from the start with Banksy introducing it and his use of voice immodulation :) and hiding his identity. It instantly makes it interesting.
The thing that really drew me in about this documentary was reports that it had a crazy twist, or a movie within the movie. I had never seen a documentary that did anything but attempt to tell the story of a certain subject(s), usually lacking in entertainment but full of reality.
This is where Exit Through the Gift Shop seperates itself from the herd. There is a drastic change of direction in the film that you don't even fully notice until after you've finished it. Once you realize what just happened you almost want to go back and watch it again because it changes everything. It even makes certain parts seem funnier when before it just seemed sad.
The film follows a French expat who is not living in California. He has a habit of filming literally every moment of his life. The film follows him along giving his character his base and then follows him as he embarks on a new obsession, street art.
He jumps in feet first into the street art scene and is just working his way up interviewing artists, following them around, etc. Eventually he needs to find the king of the street art movement, Banksy. This proves difficult since no one knows who Banksy is and Banksy himself is reluctant to be filmed. Eventually he finds him of course.
The movie then shifts to background on Banksy, then Banksy and the frenchman building their relationship. Eventually the frenchman is finally forced to compile all the footage he has on Street art into a documentary he says he's been filming for. So he takes almost a year to compile all of his tens of thousands of hours of footage into a documentary that turns out to be crap. All the street artists thought he was a documentary filmmaker this whole time, now it is clear he is just a loon who likes filming. After seeing this Banksy decides he wants to take a crack at making a documentary from his footage and encourages the frenchman to try actually creating some art instead of filming others'.
This is where the movie changes. The Frenchman dives in headfirst into his new assignment from Banksy and dubs himself Mr. Brainwash. He starts producing art at an alarming rate and none of it is terribly original. It's all stuff he's seen in his years of filming street artists, except he will change a few things and call it his own. He then schedules an art show but has really no idea what he's doing, he just produces a ton of crap art and because they market it as some trendy street art show people show up in the thousands.
After watching it, it all seemed a little weird after Mr. Brainwash showed up but then I read a little about the film after watching it. It is a theory that the whole film is a hoax and in fact an art project by Banksy. Mr. Brainwash becomes kind of the untalented, self-important, elitist artist and it seems as if Banksy is mocking himself by creating him. Of course no one involved with the film will admit it's a hoax and that just adds to the mystery.
I'm giving it a 5/5 because I can't say it's anything like I've ever seen before and I am thouroughly considering watching it again.