Rent this Movie and then: Exit through the Gift Shop
I'm on a mission. I need to see all the nominated documentaries for the Oscars so that I can see how fucked up their voting system is. You all know that I'm a documentary junkie, I rent every single flick that goes available during a month. So I already know all the ones that should be on the list but didn't make it for some weird reason... Last weekend my boyfriend and I cuddled up in bed and watched Banksy's Exit through the Gift Shop.
Interesting movie. Let me give you the basics: Thierry Guetta loves to film stuff. He's a quirky dude, a French immigrant living in Los Angeles with his wife and kids. He's sort of weird in a nerd kind of way. He loves his camera. Way too much, in my opinion. Guetta starts to film a friend, a street artist with a nice following.
Long story short, he starts to get more street artists to film while they go apeshit on the streets. In his line of famous painters/grafitti artists, he moves up to Shepard Fairy. Then, out of the blue, he gets the ungettable-get: he films Banksy. And as as incredible this fact is - everybody knows that is identity is a very guarded secret - he befriends him and continues to work with him.
Banksy decides to ask Guetta to finish his documentary about street art. Guetta does. And now, what seems to be weird is that he edits the film - to a total piece of junk. Banksy takes the project, films and edits it to perfection.
I won't go any further so you can see what happens next. For me, "Exit..." is a love song... um, let me rephrase that. It's a fuck you song about the art world, about selling out, about buying art just for the hype, about egos and most of all... about a hoax?
There has been reports about this film not entirely true. To be honest, while this has been reported about Catfish as well (that fact seems impossible to me in so many levels), I got to admit that while watching the movie, I found some details kind of... weird, I guess. Sometimes it seemed like I was watching a comedy. Some of the details - mostly the fact that a complete unknown filmmaker found Banksy, and he actually was allowed to film; the fact that Guetta could film the shit about anything but could not edit a decent 30 seconds - shit, even I can edit and I didn't go to film school!
I just thought the movie was, for a lack of better words, too easy.
Another thing is... while this movie is entertaining and you get to see wonderful art, it still doesn't deserve a nomination. I'm sorry, but it's totally real. This last year had better work, more deserving movies should have gotten the nod. This is just one of those movies you watch on a Saturday afternoon, you get inspired to paint a little, you laugh... and then you go and do what I did... have a beer.
Me has left the building. Through the normal exit door. Fuck the gift shop.
