Reality Show

Departing sharply from my string of music docs, Reality Show is anything but real. In a fully fictional story, a reality producer decides to create a wholly-original program by centering on a family who doesn't know they are under surveillance. When the randomly-chosen family does turn out to be as boring and predictable as they appear, pressure from the network leads the show team to inject drama into the story, leading to consequences spiraling out of control.

Normally this sort of story causes my to cringe, and while parts of it are difficult to watch, overall the whole piece is incredibly funny, making it well worth the suffering. It's depression and hilarity in one.

Reality Show
2013, 92 minutes, directed by Adam Rifkin

The Conspiracy

Two Canadian directors set out to create a documentary film about a local conspiracy theorist.  But when their subject goes missing a few months into production, the filming doesn't end.  Tracking down his work, the filmmakers continue to put the pieces together, tying -everything- together and to a mysterious world cabal.

The film explores how conspiracy theorists create un-refutable positions to ensure that no reality can interfere with their beliefs.  Then the film shows how far the conspiracy really goes...

One of the director's comments was particular interesting.  As he said, if athletes dressed up in the woods and conducted pagan rituals, the media would be all over it.  But when the people who actually run the world do it (e.g. Bohemian Grove), the media is generally silent.

The Conspiracy
2012, directed by Christopher MacBride 

Black Pond

The papers called the Thompson family murderers. They say it was the only decent thing to do. Why did they invite a stranger to their home, and when he died bury him in the woods?

Like many British mockumentaries, this is a slow-burner punctuated with dry witty humor. I would have liked it better if I was working on more sleep.

Black Pond
2011, 82 minutes, directed by Will Sharpe and Tom Kinsley

"The downside of a tedious life is you have a tedious life. But the upside is you have a swimming pool in the summer."

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

Dai Nipponjin

I might have liked this more at a different time of day. Dai Nipponjin is a Japanese mockumentary, shown midnight last night as a secret screening. Like all mockumentaries, it is rich with awkward pauses, incongruous events, and use of the camera to reveal more than the "subjects" are willing to say. We were warned that the film started slow, then would build up in hilarity. Sadly, it never really picked up to keep me into it at 1:00 AM. The brief bits of hilarity were too sparse between the slow and silent.

Japanese absurd can play well at night - Naisu no mori: The First Contact played beautifully after midnight. Dai Nipponjin just didn't rise the level of absurdity that I've come to expect from the Japanese comedy genre.

If you like mockumentaries, rent this one on a Sunday afternoon when you're folding laundry. Just don't expect it to keep you awake.

Dai Nipponjin
2007, 113 minutes, directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto