My take on the mess of a documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop"

Thanks to 14 inches of snow last week I was free to spend the afternoon watching nexflix instants i never get around to watching. 'Exit Through the Gift Shop' definately surprised me.

here comes the spoiler...
Narrated in the third person, the documentary gave away that the story had a surprise in the first scene beginning.

Although the story is solely promoted the "street art documentary" portion of the film. the story more accurately covered a 10 year span in this odd french man's life, obsessively documented with a video camera.

This man ended up filming over 5 years of street art in action, only to produce a throw up of 10 second clips of EVERYTHING he's filmed in his life. Bansky told him the film was "like nothing i have ever seen", admitted that he was worried french man was mentally ill, and nicely told him to try another form of art. street art more specifically.


The french-man (i honestly cant remember his actual name right now, as i'm sure nobody else did) adopted the name "Mr. Brainwash", and only posted typical stencils of himself all over LA at first. But, moved on and decided to hire a bunch of kids to spit out his thoughts into actual art.  Then, decided to have his first quaint gallery showing. AND THEN hired more art drones to put the warehouse together and create bigger and more ridiculous prints.  I was constantly in a state of dread as he manages to break his leg and get nothing done three weeks before the show.


THEN

the media gets involved, and news about the upcoming show spreads like wildfile. Opening day arrives, and its kind of disgusting how many people are standing in line for the show (but then again i dont live in LA). Minutes before the doors open, the craigslist art drones are still hurrying to hang up the pieces.

The showing is a huge hit, and he manages to sell millions of dollars of his "art." WTF!? Now he is considered a major pop art artist(?) of our time. I ended up feeling kind of confused/relieved/excited for him.

But the best part comes next as all the street artists are asked what they think of his success. All of them go through the politically correct kudos, but quickly show how pissed they are that this annoying french filmmaker that has no real education/experience made more money than they a ever will in one day, doing (basically) what they have been working on for years. Bansky has the most disgusted reaction out of the street artists, which made me laugh.

This is definately a film that doesnt reward you until the very end, but it was definately worth the wait with Exit Through The Gift Shop. I, along with the other street art artists, couldnt help but be confused and a little snobbish about this guys instant and accidental success. But more importantly I finished the film with a sense of opptimism that life is still unpredictable and anything is really possible if you believe in it. That sounds quite "highschool graduation speech" of me, but there is no other words for this documentary. And by the end credits, i was in love with it.