Saturday Night At The Movies
F for fake
By Dennis Hartley
Catfish: Photoshop is creepy!
So-would you believe me if I told you that showman P.T. Barnum, in point of fact, never actually uttered the words “There’s a sucker born every minute”? You know how I found that out? I Googled it. It says, right here in the Wikipedia, that P.T. Barnum’s “famous quote” never left his lips. And since I read it on the internet, it simply must be true, right? Oh, and have I mentioned that I am a wealthy, athletically built, 6’2” 34 year-old male, with a PhD in quantum physics, into music, literature and film? Are you buying this shit?
In the documentary (-ish) Catfish, a buzz-generating entry at this year’s Sundance, directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost ask their audience to buy a lot of shit. In spite of a cast billed as playing themselves, and Universal’s press kit trumpeting that “filmmakers” Schulman and Joost “…had no idea that their project would lead to the most exhilarating and unsettling months of their lives”- well, if this film is a “documentary”- then I am a wealthy, athletically built, 6’2” 34 year old male with a PhD.
But I could be wrong. Perhaps the events “documented” in this film did actually transpire as presented, and I’m just an embittered, mean old cynic who has seen too many movies. In fact, let’s all play along just for a moment. Let’s say that Schulman and Joost really were in the process of making a documentary-in-search-of-a-story, when it struck them that the “story” was right in front of them the whole time. Schulman’s brother Nev, a professional photographer blessed with his own camera-friendly good looks, had struck up a social networking-based friendship with an artistically gifted 8 year old girl from Michigan, who initially intrigued him by snail-mailing strikingly mature oil paintings based on his photos. When the girl’s 19 year old sister introduced herself into the mix, Nev struck up a web relationship with her as well; a relationship of a more involved and potentially amorous nature. Inevitably, Nev (now the official “subject” of his brother’s doc) reached a point where he wanted to take the next logical step-and not necessarily for the reasons you might think (sorry about the vagueness; I’m trying to keep this as “spoiler-free” as possible). Suffice it to say that our intrepid NYC-based trio of dazzling urbanites-turned detectives are soon packing up their film gear and heading to Ted Nugent country for a surprise visit. Ah, but which of the parties involved in this bit of cyber-intrigue is in for the bigger surprise? I could tell you…but then I’d have to kill you.
I do have to hand it to the filmmakers-they have at the very least constructed a virtually critic-proof product. If one decries the possible fakery of the film, then the filmmakers could counter that the heart of the story is, after all, about the inherent deception of cyber romance (the old “So how do you know that the hot 19 year old college cheerleader you’ve been sexting isn’t in reality a fat, middle-aged truck driver named Skip?” meme). Also, the Universal press kit I quoted from earlier does refer to the film as a “reality thriller”-which could be thrown back at critics as a caveat emptor (“Hey-we never exactly claimed that this was a documentary.”). Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but in a post Blair Witch Project world I feel it is my duty as a critic to bring this up. Oh well…wasn’t it Godard who said that “Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world.”?
If you can get past the “Is it real or Memorex” conundrum-this is not necessarily a bad film; it’s intriguing enough to hold your interest through to the end. And if the point is to show how we have become a world of Walter Mittys and Eleanor Rigbys, spending the long dark nights of our souls pecking away on our keyboards, busily reinventing ourselves to assuage our lives of quiet desperation, then the film does convey a bittersweet poignancy in the denouement. And I have a confession to make. I’m not 6’2”.
Previous posts with related themes:
Part dos: Viva Espana!
Stigmata: Heavy bleeding, in glorious B&W
The Festival of New Spanish Cinema is playing here in Seattle this week; through the auspices of SIFF (through Sunday, September 26th) so I thought I’d share a couple of highlights with you. Now in its 3rd season, the Festival showcases a number of unique and off-beat offerings from contemporary Spanish filmmakers. If you don’t live in the Seattle area, don’t despair; between now and the end of the year it will be making whistle stops in New York City, Portland, Houston, Miami, Chicago, and Washington D.C. (more details, including the remaining dates for Canada and Europe, can be found here.)
Stigmata (aka Estigmas) is a film that is so visually intoxicating, striking in tone and steeped in rich atmosphere, that one is compelled to overlook (forgive?) its relatively thin narrative and decidedly glacial pacing. Based on the graphic novel by Lorenzo Mattotti and Claudio Piersanti, the film is directed by Adan Aliaga. In his acting debut, champion Spanish shot-putter Manuel Martinez stars as the central character, Bruno, a classic “gentle giant” (replete with the requisite heart of gold) who wakes up one morning with mysterious, painless wounds in both hands, which proceed to bleed copiously and continuously. Naturally, this makes him an instant social pariah. He finds refuge with a travelling carnival, where true love, tragedy and redemption transpire. I assume much of the simmering angst and sublimated religious subtext will resonate more strongly with my Catholic brethren (although, as a Jew, I can sort of empathize). I was reminded of Fellini’s La Strada, with a few echoes of Lynch’s The Elephant Man as well. Pere Pueyo’s B & W cinematography is outstanding, and Aliaga is a talent to keep an eye on.
WW2 espionage buffs won’t want to miss Garbo the Spy, an absorbing documentary about a Spanish double agent who arguably changed the course of the war in one brilliant play. In 1944, he managed to convince the Germans (who thought he was working for them) that the D-Day landings were merely a diversionary exercise (the Nazis may have otherwise thrown even more weight behind the defense of their crucial Normandy beachheads). It’s a fascinating tale of an enigmatic and unlikely hero, who one interviewee calls “one of the greatest actors” who ever lived (at one point, he had 22 “operatives” working for him-all creations of his own imagination, and juggled so masterfully and convincingly that his German employers truly believed that they were an actual consortium of intelligence gatherers). Director Edmon Roch uses a clever device, weaving in footage from classic WW2 espionage thrillers to put events in context. One bit of footage (from the 80s) showing a choked-up “Garbo” visiting the U.S. cemetery in Normandy, is a beautifully moving tribute to the great sacrifices made on those beaches.
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