Exit Through The Gift Shop

2010 turned out to be a pretty strong year for documentaries. I am still working my way through a lot of them but it has been made easier by Netflix Instant viewing. While Netflix Instant view is slow to get new movies, they seem to be very good at getting documentaries upon their initial DVD/BluRay release. Last night I finally watched Exit Through The Gift Shop. It was an excellent film that deserves its spot as the frontrunner for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards.

The documentary is about the world of street art and the mysterious artist Banksy. Like other docs that have come out this year, the film deals with questions about reality. How much of the film is real and how much is a trick. However in the case of this film, those questions are intentional and they heighten the experience for the viewer. The film focuses on Banksy, a popular street artist who is being embraced by the art world. His rogue art starts selling for insane amounts of money, because collectors decide that his work is genius. Whenever Banksy appears on screen his face is blacked out and his voice is altered to protect his identity. At about the halfway point, the film shifts focus over to Thierry Guetta. Thierry is an aspiring filmmaker who has acquired thousands of hours of footage of street artists filmed over the better part of a decade. His plan was to make a documentary about street art but in reality he just filled box after box with tapes that he has not watched. This is all brought to a screeching halt when Thierry compiles the footage into a rough cut of a documentary and shows it to Banksy. Banksy tells him it is unwatchable. This is when the film really gets interesting as the rest of the running time is devoted to the creation of an artist. I don't want to spoil everything in the movie so I wont say more about the plot.

The movie is very funny and cleverly edited. The main protagonist of the film (Thierry) is humorous in his childlike idealism and naivety.  He is presented as a fairly dimwitted but likeable guy and serves as an entertaing tourguide through the "street" and "legitimate" art worlds. What makes someone a great artist? What makes great art? How do you decide the worth of something so subjective? What makes a film a good film? Exit Through The Gift Shop acts as a prank on the art world and the viewer as well.