Exit Through the Gift Shop

How is it until now I'd never seen this gem of a movie? The film is directed by notorious, and equally mysterious English street artist, Banksy. It uses many, many pieces of stock footage from a French shop keeper named Thierry Guetta (A man who would later be known as Mr. Brainwash), who follows many street artists all over the world, capturing their art on film before it is taken down. He soon comes across the man himself, capturing his art, and even attempts to make a documentary centered around the art, and the artists (Even though he has never made a film before). But Banksy decides to turn the tables, and instead focuses his own documentary on the life of Guetta. Why? As Banksy himself puts it, "He's a more interesting person than I am." An inspired decision on his part. Theirry Guetta really is a fascinating person, a man obsessed with taking a video camera everywhere he goes, and capturing these artists at work, having strong senses of passion for both. He is also a witty person, sometimes the things he says feel a little too odd to be true, but believe it. The film's portrait of the man is rather eccentric, and energetic.

A lot of this is to the credit of film editors Tom Fulford, and Chris King, whose editing and pacing is pitch perfect, always leaving proper delivery for some rather humorous things to occur, and never straying away from giving the world of art its own adequate time in the spotlight. The film really is a thought provoker, sometimes the life of the man can make you question "Is this for real?" I guess the whole film is really summed up by one phrase: "Time will tell whether I'm a rabbit, or a turtle." Sounds silly now, but once you hear it, the gears in your head start right up. It's a passionately crafted movie of a man with nothing but passion for what he does.

Exit Through the Gift Shop is a diamond in the rough, one that I give **** out of ****

Like the very nature of the underground street art movement "Exit Through the Gift Shop" feels fresh and almost subversive. It doesn't matter to me if it is a conceptualized mockumentary, or a genuine attempt to record the outsider reality experienced by brilliant street artists like Shepard Fairey, Invader, and the infamous Banksy. "Exit Through The Gift Shop" is mischievous and immediate in the same way that street art is.

Mainly we watch the evolution of Thierry Guetta from an obsessive-compulsive videographer to a successful popular artist whose street credibility is quickly parlayed into the show of shows. Guetta takes contemporary icons and gives them Warholian emphasis, so we see a reinvention of Madonna, who once reinvented herself in a Marilyn-like way, and who we later learn commissions Mister Brainwash (Guetta) to design her cover art. Guetta's point-of-view is absolutely authentic in the way it synthesizes and skewers popular culture. Or is it Banksy's point-of-view? It doesn't matter. It's brilliant, provocative, charming, and completely entertaining.

Not that I felt the same thrill Thierry must have gotten while roaming the streets with street artists, I however admit to downloading the movie via torrent (yes its illegal), and so watched it in my own living room for anyone interested in the circumstances of the review.

Viewers should be reminded that Exit Through the Gift Shop is a documentary rather than a movie, but at the same time plays out more like an adventure movie than an educational one about street artists. Albeit being more down to earth, a fitting comparison could be Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

Thierry Guetta is our main character and camera guy at the same time. While lurking behind the camera he tells us his intriguing story when his life took a sudden and distinct turn. He had became known as "the guy with the camera" - developing some kind of compulsive disorder after his mother passed. His argument that everything should be recorded or else abruptly might get lost at any point in life seems reasonable but his thousands of tapes, that nobody would ever watch, piled up in his basement confirms the maladaptive nature of his behavior.

His compulsive filming became a useful tool first when he met a street artist that he began to follow - filming every event of the artists creative process. He sank deeper and deeper into the world of street artists and that became sort of an addiction to Thierry. He seemed to almost forget about his wife and kids. Exit Through the Gift Shop tells us as much about street artisting as it does about Thierry himself. Despite being, as he himself points out, "a ghost behind the camera", his character truly steals the show. This is by no means a problem but rather enrich the story with a greater purpose. Thierrys meeting with Banksy and the following episodes poses a lot of interesting questions about what art really is, what it means to humans, what talent is made of and even about complex group behavior.

Despite being directed by a street artist and evidently put together from thousands of different tapes, Exit Through the Gift Shop is amazingly well directed. It doesn't feel hyped, it doesn't seem to lie or exaggerate the happenings and the fact that an interesting, motivated and special character gets to portrait everything from an outside view is fascinating to watch. My text is hardly enough to summarize it so the only tip i can give you is WATCH IT!

Exit Through the Gift Shop may be all smoke and mirrors but it is a highly provocative mirror we look into, one that raises many questions about the commercialization of art and even about the authenticity of the documentary form itself. Ostensibly directed by the mysterious British graffiti artist Banksy, the film, shot with a not too steady hand-held camera, describes the attempts by Los Angeles clothing store owner Thierry Guetta to capture on film the world of street artists, previously hidden from public view. Banksy, who has developed quite an underground reputation for outrageousness after posting his own paintings in the Met and other museums, is shown hooded, in shadows, and with his voice distorted.

He begins the film by explaining that the movie was supposed to be about him but when Guetta's attempt at film-making proved to be unwatchable, he took over the making of the film and it became a documentary about Guetta, and how he was transformed into the street artist known as "Mr. Brainwash". Narrated by Welsh actor Rhys Ifans (slotted to play Edward de Vere in the upcoming Roland Emmerich film Anonymous), Guetta is an garrulous and outgoing Frenchman who carries his video camera with him wherever he goes, filling up tape after tape. After meeting with his cousin known as Space Invader, a graffiti artist famous for mosaics showing characters from the Space Invader video game, he is introduced to Shepard Fairey, the man responsible for the Obama "hope" campaign in 2008 as well as street artists Monsieur André, Swoon, Sweet Toof, Borf, and many others.

Shepard and Thierry become partners in the clandestine world of graffiti-making and, even though Shepard feels that that there is something not quite right about Guetta, he is happy to have him around as a "security guard" who is willing to climb tall buildings to locate the most lucrative spots. Eventually, Thierry realizes that, in order for his film to be successful, he must find a way to find the reclusive Banksy. He finds Banksy, however, almost impossible to track down. The power of intention works wonders though, for on a trip to Los Angeles, Banksy himself contacts Thierry to ask for his help in finding the best places to post in L.A. The end result is an ongoing relationship and a Banksy art show called "Barely Legal" that does extremely well financially. As far as its artistic merits, I will leave that to others to decode.

After Banksy tells Guetta to leave his tapes with him and go put on his own show, Thierry does just that, renting an old CBS Studio and transforming it into a factory where he endeavors mightily to put on his own show "Life is Beautiful" under the name "Mr. Brainwash". The 2008 show, aided by an L.A. Weekly cover story, earns Thierry over one million dollars and catapults the Frenchman into the ranks of the world's most popular street artists. Exit Through the Gift Shop may be the real deal or it may be a tongue-in-cheek spoof of the gullibility of the public and the crass commercialism of the art world but only Banksy really knows. It does, however, provide a fast-paced and highly entertaining glimpse into a world that has, heretofore, eluded the camera because of its secretive nature and dubious legality.

An experience will ultimately become a diluted memory, unless the experience itself is documented in image or film, in which case it will last forever (or until it is deleted/destroyed...). 'Exit Through The Gift Shop' is a brilliant examination of the underground street art culture, and a poignant look at man's obsession with a culture he is increasingly drawn into throughout his life.

Thierry Guetta (pronounced Te-ree), is a French immigrant living Los Angeles with his loving wife and children and a good honest job, but there is one object he will never leave the house without; his video camera. Guetta has been enticed into the everyday cinema verité movement of simply recording any, and everything that goes on in his life. From playing with his children, to his ultimate attraction of following other street artists around and documenting their work, Guetta loves to watch, document and admire from behind the lens. Guetta eventually earns the trust and respect of various artists around the globe including the elusive Banksy, his cousin Space Invader and Shepard Fairey, and provides the audience with an up close and personal view of a culture (or industry) which has been projected into the limelight over the past five years.

Narrated by Rhys Ifans, 'Exit' has been acknowledged as not having a registered director, instead it is a smoothly edited combination of Guetta's extensive and various filmed sequences from over the years (the film shows his EXTENSIVE physical collection of tapes from more than decade of film-making) and interviews with various leading figures in the industry. For example Banksy is interviewed at length over his involvement with Guetta and comes across as a very down-to-earth, humble and at times, incredibly funny person. While everybody, including Guetta, are extremely brazen and don't hold back when speaking about each other, their profession or how the street art culture has developed over time into a somewhat monopolistic environment (which can be viewed by the fact that the rich and famous turned out in droves for Banksy's first exhibition in the United States).

This isn't a film about 'graffiti' though, as some may simply see it as on the surface, aside from the exploration of a fast growing community it is also a deep, scary and heart-warming look at Thierry Guetta's life over a decade onwards as he constantly leaves behind his family and his job to follow various artists around the globe. Mentally unstable, or one of the greatest French minds of the last twenty years, nobody is quite sure what Thierry Guetta (also known as Mr Brainwash) is, but what everybody does acknowledge is that he is a man with a passion and while he may not follow the same ideology as everybody else, his heart is still in the right place. 'Exit Through The Gift Shop' is a fascinating documentary focusing on a rising culture that many people may not have much knowledge about, except for knowing the name of the elusive, and as I have mentioned, surprisingly hilarious Banksy.