Review - Exit Through the Gift Shop
I know, I'm late to the party on this but what the hell.
The Premise - a crazy French guy who lives in LA films everything. Literally everything. He discovers his cousin is a street artist, films him, gets into it, films many other street artists, goes looking for Banksy who eventually shows up and is later filmed doing his first big show (which was itself a huge pisstake but nobody noticed). Banksy is irritated that his stuff, which, after all, he left out on the street is getting sold for metric shit-tons of money and bought by wankers so he leans on the crazy French guy who has always gotten away with filming everything by claiming to be making a documentary whereas actually, he was just obsessive compulsive.
French guy, now put on the spot, tries to make a documentary but it's shit. Banksy watches it, tells him to leave the tapes with him and maybe go try some art for himself, have a party? French dude goes nuts, hires a cast of thousands and creates an art production line producing, well, crap, I guess, and does a bigger show than Banksy's, gets away with it.
Banksy decides French dude is more interesting to study than he is and therefore, turns the documentary around.
Alright, that's out of the way. First, the pacing and editing is great. Second, the use of music (especially Richard Hawley) and perfectly dry voiceover by Rhys Ifans are the little touches that make something which is already good into something excellent. Third, Banksy himself doing his best Man With No Face thing and using a voice modulator over an extremely broad Somerset accent is clearly laughing at all of us right from the start. I could go all postmodern about it and tell you the jokes/messages/morals that I saw but what's the point? That kind of analysis has always been for pointless bores anyway.
So how do we leave this? It's great. It's got great images, some brilliant amateur footage that you'll never see again, a sly look at the inside (or is it?) of where street art was two years ago and a really rich and cruel sense of humour.
Recommended.
The Premise - a crazy French guy who lives in LA films everything. Literally everything. He discovers his cousin is a street artist, films him, gets into it, films many other street artists, goes looking for Banksy who eventually shows up and is later filmed doing his first big show (which was itself a huge pisstake but nobody noticed). Banksy is irritated that his stuff, which, after all, he left out on the street is getting sold for metric shit-tons of money and bought by wankers so he leans on the crazy French guy who has always gotten away with filming everything by claiming to be making a documentary whereas actually, he was just obsessive compulsive.
French guy, now put on the spot, tries to make a documentary but it's shit. Banksy watches it, tells him to leave the tapes with him and maybe go try some art for himself, have a party? French dude goes nuts, hires a cast of thousands and creates an art production line producing, well, crap, I guess, and does a bigger show than Banksy's, gets away with it.
Banksy decides French dude is more interesting to study than he is and therefore, turns the documentary around.
Alright, that's out of the way. First, the pacing and editing is great. Second, the use of music (especially Richard Hawley) and perfectly dry voiceover by Rhys Ifans are the little touches that make something which is already good into something excellent. Third, Banksy himself doing his best Man With No Face thing and using a voice modulator over an extremely broad Somerset accent is clearly laughing at all of us right from the start. I could go all postmodern about it and tell you the jokes/messages/morals that I saw but what's the point? That kind of analysis has always been for pointless bores anyway.
So how do we leave this? It's great. It's got great images, some brilliant amateur footage that you'll never see again, a sly look at the inside (or is it?) of where street art was two years ago and a really rich and cruel sense of humour.
Recommended.