There Are No Fakes

Decent story, but not crafted to the level of a first run movie. More like something you would watch on TV. Not bad, but not great either.

This was fascinating look at an intersection between high art culture, the art marketplace, indigenous culture, and the messiness of real human existence. It's sordid & gripping. Lessons learned: only buy art from the artist, if you're at all concerned about authenticity; the value of art and artists is completely arbitrary; people can be greedy.

Not a particularly fascinating documentary. Fairly obvious who the bad actors in this story. A story of greed and simple people being taken advantage of. Art work (childlike) is forged and sold to a gullible Canadian public. Some at ridiculous prices. Oddly, not a single forensic examination of any of the art is shown or discussed.

I actually went to this movie by accident, getting my dates mixed up. A seemingly small story about forgery in the art world (what else is new) but one that focuses on a renowned indigenous artist who emerged from the morass of a difficult early life to produce some of the finest art of its kind, but then fell back and was seemingly taken advantage of by several small but unscrupulous characters. A great story by itself, but the emergence half way through of another person's story made this a riveting documentary. I can't recommend this enough, and was glad I couldn't read the rep theatre schedule properly.

The authenticity of Norval Morrisseau paintings represents one of the sad chapters in the exploitation of Canadian aboriginals. The documentary exposes the methods the forgery ring employed to saturate the market. The film is balanced given the trial judge' finding that forged paintings existed. I particularly appreciated the evidence of the aboriginal witnesses in Thunder Bay.

The last word(s) will come from the Ontario Court of Appeal so the film should be revised at some point.