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Exit Through the Gift Shop
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| Year: |
2010
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Director: |
Banksy
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| Stars: |
Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Thierry Guetta, Rhys Ifans, Space Invader
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| Genre: |
Documentary |
| Rating: |
  7 (from 1 vote) |
| Review: |
Banksy became well known around the world as a graffiti artist who was willing to take chances and push the boundaries of what could have been seen as simple vandalism. Here he is in disguise to introduce his first film, where he informs us that this is not a documentary about himself, but of an acquaintance of his, one Thierry Guetta, who started out claiming to be making a documentary of his own. Guetta obsessively shot days, months, years even, of footage with the camera that was never far from his side, and somehow became involved with the underground art scene...
And this is his story. Or was it? In the year that such films as I'm Still Here and Catfish were released, the documentary format was taking some knocks as the casual viewer was established as not believing everything they saw to be the truth, and indeed many were actively cynical about all sorts of things, leaving the nature of reality not the sole province of what was seen on the television news. Call it the triumph of the conspiracy theorists, but by 2010 the world looked to be headed for a state of affairs where nobody really believed anything unless it was somehow pitted against the consensus of what was generally accepted to be true.
So if Banksy, the notorious prankster, wished his efforts here to be taken seriously, had he effectively shot himself in the foot? Actually, apart from a small handful of bits and pieces a lot of what was depicted here was fairly easy to swallow, as after all there had been a graffiti movement in the world for years, and many of those caught up in it were interviewed or at least appeared in this, along with their artwork. Banksy was not interested in whether these examples were proper art or not, but the mood of the times rose against him as even in this the exhibits were analysed by those hoping to divine some kind of authenticity and purpose to them.
But could it be that the paintings and stencils and posters had very little point other than to announce to passersby, "I'm here!"? Shepard Fairey, the man who made wrestler and Princess Bride star André the Giant a counterculture icon, shows up here as a friend of Guetta and expressing regret that he ever introduced the French former clothes merchant to the concept of alternative branding as seen at his shows, and there is a concern brought out in this that what started as a hobby, criminal as it was, had transformed into a moneygrubbing exercise. Even Banksy expresses reservations about where the movement headed as it went "legit" and every modern art dealer worth talking to had at least one of his productions in their collection.
However, what's to be remembered was that Banksy was as much a comedian as he was an artist, perhaps more so, with his most celebrated work the kind of thing that could easily have found its way into trendy magazines as cartoons. That's why, by the end, Guetta's stuff comes across as a facsimile of the ideas behind the work of those groundbreakers he took his lead from, by way of Andy Warhol, and Banksy represents something more original. It might have been that the director genuinely thought that he had a story worth telling about a true eccentric which would comment on the situation that Banksy and his cohorts had found themselves in, or it could be just as possible that now the art had become popular he wished to distance himself from Guetta and those who would emulate him. A victim of his own success? Whatever, he had produced a thought-provoking documentary that thankfully had not lost its sense of humour.
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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