Tarnation

I know I should, but I don't watch many documentaries. It's a different world inside of film-making, one in which everything is, among other things, real. Another feeling that a documentary generates is immediacy; a sensation of present time even if it's telling something that's older than you. "Tarnation", a life story, is a striking view of a unique personality.

Jonathan Caouette, its director, is now in his thirties; but it's like he had planned it all his life, like if he had known it would be a completed project all along. Here we see a lot of films inside of the big film, that Caouette put together to show who he is, what he does, how he feels and how the people who live around him act.

More than the rest, there is a focus on his mother, Renee LeBlanc, who suffers from schizophrenia and didn't live with him for a long time. She lives with him now and Jonathan lived with his grandparents for a lot of years, and he didn't know his father but he tried to find him; and he also lived with foster parents and he always knew he was gay.

This and more is seen in the images he put together in a program anyone with a Macintosh –Apple- computer can use. I don't want to say much more because "Tarnation", although not great, is really magical and inspiring…Magical because is like nothing you've ever seen before; inspiring because it shows and speaks of the creativity of the filmmaker. It will give to anyone who's thinking about doing cinema ideas about tons of things, unstoppably.

And "Tarnation" is also a film for any true cinema lover, because it contains references to a lot of names and important influential cinematographic figures. But influential for him, who, as he inspires us, shows us who inspired him…One example that comes to mind is the fact that Caouette and a friend made a musical stage version of David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" when they were in high school.

He says it in the film's tag-line: "Your greatest creation is the life you lead", and he is right. So be encouraged, and if you feel that you should make a film out of every day you live, don't worry and write about it; or carry a camera with you through the day. This is the kind of message "Tarnation" wants to leave, cinematically.

Emotionally, it wants to show the truly difficult experiences of a genius who, somehow, had a whole movie in his head and wanted the world to know he's not afraid of showing these experiences with and in it…Life is like that, you can't escape it; write that down.

In the world of documentaries, Tarnation ranks among one of the best that I have seen. Sometimes with a low-budget outing it is hard to judge the quality of the final product, but Jonathan Caouette proves that he has a passion for the subject, a desire to tell his story and a know-how to bring his moments to life. With bold music (that nearly grips your heart at every turn) and an Andy Warhol style of imagery, Caouette pulls us deep within his life and shows us his life unfiltered. Using just his computer, he builds the story of his life using scenes taken from nineteen years in front (and behind) the camera. It reminded me of Capturing the Friedmans, except with more heart and soul. We are taken through a broad range of emotions which include fear, surprise, excitement, and distraught as we witness the decline of our narrator. Tarnation is a man's bold expression to tell the story of his life, and for me, it worked wonders on my soul and mind.

What makes Caouette's documentary impressive is that you sometimes forget that he is the one creating the masterpiece. Since he is in front of the camera from a young age until thirty years later, it is easy for one to forget that he is creating these images for us. I think that is important for us to remember because he places every snapshot, every audio, and every snippet of video in the film to show a purpose. While we all can watch the film and derive our purpose or point about the film (which is what makes cinema amazing), I saw it as this very sad and vicious circle of life. Mother lives with parents, who are mentally unstable, she eventually is that way as well, which then slowly translates onto her son. It is a sad and destructive cycle that happens daily in America as well as around the world. It is a central focus to many of our films and media, the idea that if you grow up in an environment of chaos, you will eventually create that same chaos years later. It is a wild thought that can be visually seen in the film Tarnation.

Outside of the broad range of emotions that were surging through me while I watched this riveting piece of art, there were some elements that I just thought were bold, creative, and extremely stylish. I loved the use of words to tell the story. Normally, in these documentaries you are forced to listen to that calming voice telling you what is happening, what did happen, and what will happen next. In this film, Caouette uses the typed words to give us both that sensation of neutrality (and sometimes numbness) and to honestly focus our attention towards the images on screen. There are times when the voice-over technique can become overpowering, and you begin to focus yourself onto the words of the narrator, instead of the events unfolding on screen. With the typed words from Caouette, we focus on him, his mother, and the environment that is imploding around him.

Also, the music. One cannot talk about this film without mentioning the soundtrack to this film. You know those moments where you need to express yourself and the only way that works is by making a mixed CD? Well, this is Caouette's mixed CD. The music choice for the film seemed to come from his heart, from his passion spawned this music. Not only was I listening to some great songs for the first time, but this was just another avenue for me to understand Jonathan and the world in which he resides. The music really help set the mood and tone for the entire film. It helped build the tension and give us that raw human emotion that built the foundation to this movie. Jonathan's mother was the main character of this film, then I would say that the music was the co-star. This film would not have been as effective if it wasn't for the amazing sound choices.

Finally, I would like to say that Caouette has built a masterpiece here. He has taken a personal story and created more emotions and personality than most Hollywood big budget productions could have. It was real. This is something that Hollywood continues to strive for, but cannot quite reach it. Caouette has, and I wouldn't be surprised if he did it again. I think what I loved so much about this film is that it is another story about our world. I don't think we see enough real-life stories about our neighbors and friends, but instead are bombarded with superficial heroes that are paid more money than we will ever see and somehow always win the perfect girl at the end. Happiness is not always the ending to every story.

Overall, I was impressed. This was an outstanding film that deserves every bit of recognition that is handed to it. Caouette has created a masterpiece and is changing with this film the face of documentaries. I expect to see rip-offs of this popping up in the near future. He inspires those of us who want to create our own stories to do so, and is a pioneer of the struggling filmmaker. I suggest this film to all my friends and family, not just for the cinematic pleasure that is contained in it, but also because Caouette could be the modern day Warhol … at least that is what I saw when I witnessed the power of this film. Wow.

Bravo Mr. Caouette, Bravo!!!

Grade: ***** out of *****

I guess I fall into the "art school gimmicks" camp regarding this film. I went into it intrigued with the idea of watching a 13 year tale of a mother and son. Such was hardly the case. I have to admit somewhat brutally, that this movie seemed somewhat exploitative. Given how much of the film was about Caouette growing up as a gay male, I fail to see how his mother's condition actually had a hand in it. Honestly she seemed to merely be a device (an unwilling one at that) to extend Caouette's angst well into adulthood where he otherwise seemed pretty settled and happy.

The structure of the movie was: shock the viewer with my mother's condition, now talk about my horrible angst ridden teen years, now bring mother back to keep the emotion going.

I was not at all impressed with the experimental/disjointed editing style. I've been to a fair amount of film festivals and, if anything, that sort of manipulation disappeared with the advent of affordable editing software. In short, they don't even do that in film school anymore.

One more disappointment: quite late in the film, we have an opportunity to hear about Caouette's mom from two people in Caouette's family. In one instance, the opportunity is totally wasted; nothing comes of his on-camera time. In the other (with his grandfather), Caouette's manner of questioning badgering and accusatory; he doesn't let the old man get a decent thought out.

A $200-some-odd initial budget is no excuse for a dull, self-indulgent film that offers little or no insight into either a young man's life or his times.

I was initially drawn to the film by both the subject matter and the fact that John Cameron Mitchell (creator of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch") was an executive producer. After seeing "Hedwig," I trusted Mitchell's artistic judgment completely---only to guess after seeing "Tarnation" that Mitchell must have been swayed by some sort of internal "pay it forward" guilt-trip to professionally help out a fellow young-ish gay filmmaker. (Disclaimer: I'm gay myself and very much appreciate gay or gender-bending film-making---when it's well done. This film, though, was like a psychedelic version of the incredibly gooey "Better Than Chocolate"---as in "I'm a sensitive gay person and I've been through a lot---love me!" Ick.)

Director/star Caouette apparently had about 15 minutes-worth of interesting home-video footage of himself as a child growing up with his once-institutionalized mother and oddball grandparents. And a few minutes of vanity shots of himself as a teenager with friends and as an adult with his boyfriend. The rest of the movie consists primarily of long, drawn-out filler---pseudo-freaky graphics and music superimposed over photos of Caouette posing. Not to mention the subtitles, especially at the beginning, that take 20 frames to relay a bit of information when they could have taken 2 or 3. (I read other reviews here before posting this; someone wrote that he/she saw people in the theater walking out during the first 10 minutes, and that they must have been either gay-intolerant or unfamiliar with non-mainstream film-making...My own guess is that they must have just been extremely bored with the by-now-clichéd MTV-style video sequence.)

Caouette's mother's story is truly tragic. Her own parents are tragic. Caouette's abusive upbringing in foster homes is tragic. But I know this only intellectually from the film, via the facts presented in the subtitles. Caouette isn't able to evoke an actual sense of pathos or understanding with either his photographs or his video interviews. How, for instance, did he escape the bizarre family cycle? Like Caouette, I also began hanging out in area punk clubs as a teen... It was an extremely visceral, life-changing feeling of acceptance for me. And for Caouette? He met a boyfriend. And a couple of club friends. You see a couple of bland photographs of them and maybe a minute of video of the guys mugging for the camera. Nothing else to give anyone viewing a sense of either the era or for what Caouette himself was feeling.

Then he moves to New York City. There, Cute Boyfriend David is very understanding and hugs Jonathan whenever he gets a (video-recorded) call from his weird mother. The two frolic in the snow. The utter vapidity makes me wish for the crazy mom and grandparents to re-appear. (They do, they do. But rather too late to salvage the film.) I also wonder why Caouette didn't reveal in the film that he'd had a kid with a girlfriend years earlier. Probably because this doesn't quite fit into the forced "My Sensitive Boyfriend Is All I Have After My Crazy Mother" theme. It would, though, have made much better film sense as part of the bigger picture of "dysfunctional family dynamics"(and been more honest, as part of a documentary).

Near the end of the film, Caouette tries hard to make us feel something by looking "sincerely" into the camera and telling us he hopes that he doesn't turn out like his mother, then wiping away a tear... He's trying desperately to be sincere, but after seeing earlier clips of his put-on antics, the effect is more schmaltzy than credible.

Caouette's actual family situation seems to have been very intense and disturbing, but again, you learn that primarily from the subtitles and not from the actual footage. He's barely been able to get anyone in his family to open up to him on camera (unless you count his mother's "pumpkin dance" near the end of the film, which seems more like anyone's unfortunate attempt to entertainingly mug for the camera rather than an example of "look at the tragedy that my mother has become"----since we've never learned what his mother was like to begin with).

The sparse actual footage of this film is put together with a lot of bells and whistles, but there's no "there" there. And certainly no family there, only an attempt at an "American Gothic" portrait that falls short due to its transparent attempts at being "hip" and convincing.

After reviewing tarnation, I really think that there should of been some sort of biography attempt made by the director in order to explain more clearly. I must agree that this film shows bare emotions to the fullest extent. However, I got something a little different out of it, as I have met and had lengthly conversations with the director, John. I met John through John Cameron Mitchell at an audition in New York. I hung out with him recently in NY when I was visiting JCM as he co produced the flick to begin with.

I felt that the core of the film really lied within ourselves. What could be called everyday family situations where no one is really concerned how they go are essential to life and essential to this story. Many may think that this is a whimsical film about a boy taking care of his schizo mom. These everyday life situations I thought showed more of the human side we all tend to possess. Life may be full of thrill rides, but you have to wait in line to get on them, hence some of these scenes.

Overall, I think what John has created is a film too real for Hollywood and more importantly, more real than everyday life. Most people can't relate to real life as they don't live it themselves. In fact, it was even so for myself (lol). I did feel a little weird myself in the end.

Any movie where the director bares his soul in it's entirety is worth seeing to me.