See if you can follow me here, okay? We've got a documentary which may or may not actually be a documentary about mysterious street artist who's being followed and filmed by an amateur filmmaker making a documentary which may or may not actually exist. Say wha? Sounds like something wild Charlie Kaufman would've dreamt up. No, it's the crazy(like a fox?) machinations of secretive underground artist Banksy who's pulling the strings and quite possibly our legs. Whether we're being pranked or not I can't say, nor do I care, because Gift Shop is easily the funniest, most inventive documentary I've seen in ages.
It all starts off simple before everything goes all Wile E. Coyote. Thierry Guetta is a French clothing shop owner in Los Angeles. His English is comedically awful, he sports a thick mop of hair and a set of muttonchops that put Wolverine to shame. He's something of a mix of Vincent Gallo and Pepe Le Pew. Thierry's never without his video camera, and eventually stumbles into the world of street art. Or graffiti art, "tagging", whatever you wanna call it. Thierry is infatuated with it, becoming fast friends with a number of the world's leading artists, including Shepard Fairey, the man behind the famous Obama "Hope" image we've all come to recognize.
Thierry is so caught up with his new fascination that he ignores his family and his successful business. He spends all his time taping these mysterious, secretive figures, most of whom hide their faces behind elaborate masks and sport codenames like Swoon and Space Invader. Why the heck would any of them agree to be video taped by this guy? Easy enough. He promises them all that he's putting together a film, a storehouse of ideas promising to showcase to the world the true artistry behind their craft. Thierry's obsession leads home around the world, but one thing continues to elude him.
Enter Banksy, the mysterious, voice-altered virtuoso of the art world. Meeting Thierry almost by accident, he doesn't exactly take a liking to the goofy but well meaning filmmaker. It's more like he puts up with his presence. Eventually, even Banksy starts to warm up to the idea of having his exploits archived for posterity. There was just one little wrinkle in that idea: Thierry wasn't making a movie at all. All that footage he'd shot? In boxes strewn around his floor, and nobody but him knew it.
It isn't long before the natives started getting restless, demanding to see a finished product, which results in a film so heinous the crew at Mystery Science Theater would go mind numb trying to crack jokes about it. Frustrated, Banksy demands Thierry hang up his camera and become an artist himself...and it's that seemingly innocent idea that blows up the street art world forever.
Gift Shop is essentially two totally different movies. The energetic first half has us following these shrouded figures as they make their clandestine statements throughout various cities, hurdling fences and climbing seemingly unreachable peaks just for the chance to make their presence known. These sequences are simply awesome to watch unfold. It makes you feel like you're being let in on some little secret that nobody else can ever know about.
Then the second half happens, and while I don't want to say this is where it falters, the film makes a sharp turn. Where we were caught up in the glorification and the discovery of the art form, now as Thierry ventures into his own career the doc starts taking a scalpel to some of our notions as to what an artist truly is. Thierry begins to craft his own image as Mr. Brainwash, a copycat no talent with little to say or offer in his work. The fact that he becomes a monumental success? Well, let's just say it doesn't exactly sit well with his peers.
The common thread through the entire film is Banksy, who narrates in short often biting commentaries about Thierry's annoying presence. The only thing that seems to bug him more is the herd mentality of the people who begin fawning over his work because of how "cool" and "hip" it is. It doesn't take long before Banksy's art is sold in art shows for hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can tell he's uncomfortable by this entire notion. Even as he speaks, he shifts noticably in his chair. This is all supposed to be about the art, right? The message?
Or is it? I get the distinct impression we were all being fooled from jumpstreet, and that this is nothing but an elaborate gag. To every artist, in particular graf artists, there's that little part of them that wants to play teacher. They want to show us something, usually about ourselves. Otherwise why go out of their way, risking jail and in cases physical harm to make their messages visible? It's possible that Banksy is trying to prove to us the idiocy of celebrity in the art world, and the creation of Mr. Brainwash was all a part of that. 'Gift Shop' is like the fuel to his fire.
I wrote down one Banksy quote that stuck with me while watching this, and I think it captures the tone and the entire point of the film...
"Maybe it means art is a bit of a joke"
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