I’m Still Here
Directed by Casey Affleck
Starring Joaquin Phoenix
**
I haven’t had a chance to write much about it, but my favorite film of the year so far is Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop, a serio-comic documentary chronicling the rise of the street art movement over the past decade or so. One of the reasons that I love the film so much is that it can be processed in two very different ways; if, on the one hand, you accept that everyone in the movie is on the level, than Gift Shop plays like a livelier version of one of those traditional “history of…†documentaries, giving viewers a detailed account of street art’s evolution from an after-hours activity to a booming business. But if you, like me, believe that the movie’s central character (a French filmmaker who goes from documenting the exploits of real street artists to staging his own elaborate shows under the moniker Mr. Brainwash) is a creation dreamed up by the director and his cohorts, than the movie becomes a grand stunt that fits squarely into the street art tradition. Either way you choose to view it—straightforward doc or prankish mock—Exit Through the Gift Shop is funny, insightful and truthful…even if it plays around with the exact definition of “truth.â€
