Exit Through the Gift Shop

That was totally not what I expected to see.  I had understood that this was a documentary about Banksy, where perhaps he turned the tables on the filmmaker with his own brand of humour.  That didn't happen.

This was about Thierry Guetta, French camera man and pseudo filmmaker, artist, sudden millionaire.  How can someone survive on a decade-long manic high?  How can he be such a large part of the street art scene while making no effort to hide the meaningless commercialism of his work?

And yet, it's all just a little bit too fanciful.  Could he really take a simple request to go away and turn it into the biggest art show of the year?  Would his colleagues really say those things?  And when Banksy would never help with a documentary about street art again, why did he direct this one?

I think there's more scripting than appears on screen.  And yet I just can't be sure.  It's that mystery, that sense of marginal disbelief, that makes the film so appealing.

Exit Through the Gift Shop
2010, 87 minutes, directed by Banksy