Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

Coming from Banksy's home city, you can't miss a screening of anything 'him' related. If art in general is subjective, then the question of whether or not somebody is, or not a worthy artist is clearly down to what an artist provokes within. My personal view of the outcome was that the film itself and the string pulling the whole illusion was maybe the art and not the exhibition, either way .... Is this a touch of the Emperor's New clothes? Or is there really such a fine line between genius and insanity?

"Exit Through the Gift Shop" is like no other documentary ever made. I assume "Mr. Brainwash" is a real person , as I assume Banksy is a real person, although no one knows who Banksy is , because exposing his identity could get him arrested.As for " Mr. Brainwash" , he may be a real person , he may be an actor playing a role. In any case , ETTGS is a very interesting and entertaining film, it makes you question the line between art and commerce , and does it in a very interesting way. Banksy is actually a very accomplished artist , he's not your run of the mill graffiti artist. Thr film also lets you in on the world of graffiti artists , as well as Shephard Fairy , who designed the original posters for Obama's first run for the presidency. Go see this film , you won't soon forget it!

Are the things around you real? Are they really what they seem? These questions are not entirely new, and usually the movies that pretend to answer them feature people in leather and latex and bullet dodging. But can you recall a single documentary that makes you ask the same questions without even actually trying to do it? I certainly don't. And this is just one of the things that Exit Through the Gift Shop does in a fresh and innovative way.It's actually hard to describe what this film is without being either banal or cryptic. On the surface, this is a documentary about street art, people who do it and a particular person with a camera, who started as just a spectator from aside and ended up an overnight sensation in the art world himself.But again, that's just the surface, and is everything what it seems? May it be a contrived attempt to show the true nature of modern art, a brilliant satire about the "true" value of it and a clear demonstration that in today's postmodernist world the only things that matter are promotion and hype?Anyway, no matter if this film is a true chronicle of the street art and the people who make it or some sort of mockumentary prank made by Banksy to promote himself or have a laugh at the whole world for our own money, it's still a very thought provoking film and a great opportunity to see street art beyond simple graffiti. At least i finally got to see some of Banksy's works, and i have to admit that what he and some other guys do is far from plain vandalism authorities try to make it look like.Still, Exit Through the Gift Shop is about more than just the counterculture art. It's also about the contemporary art as a whole, about the way it's perceived by people and what makes the difference between art and kitschy rubbish. This topic had already been raised before, but what makes this film unique is that it's not a fiction, and those guys who took some retard's sick fantasies at face value were not hired actors but regular people. And no matter if Banksy is an authentic artist or a project aimed at monetary gain, it takes a degree of brilliance to show so clearly in what screwed up world we're living today.

This documentary is hard to explain in a sentence because even to do so doesn't really do justice to what it is actually about. As everyone knows, the one liner is that a man sets out to make a film about street- artist Banksy but finds himself being the subject of the film instead, which, as I say, really tells you something and nothing all at once. The real content of the film is in its commentary because while the film depicts a man "with a serious mental illness who happens to have a camera" obsessively becoming an artist overnight by aping others and riding hype to success, it is really putting this in front of us as something to think about.Mr Brainwash's art does indeed look like "proper" street art, so why is it not? Why did I automatically writer proper in inverted commas? What is the value of all this soulless mass-produced work and is that value set by the huge amount of money that people are willing to pay. It is all very interesting stuff and it works even better because these questions come onto you as you sit and watch a film that is already engaging before you start getting to this side of it. The story behind the commentary side is engaging as we follow street-artists doing their work, get deeper into the community and also have commentary from Banksy and others along the way. I cannot tell you if it is real or fake – indeed whether MBH is an ongoing cultural joke by Banksy or not is hard to say, but if it is staged it s very well done and has been planed and delivered over years. To me it both works too well to be faked but at the same time is too perfect a commentary to have just happened by chance, so I really have no idea.It works though, and this is the main thing. "Real" or acted, the structure is good and produces an engaging and intriguing plot, while the bigger picture is thought-provoking and enjoyably wry. I wasn't sure what to expect when I sat to watch the film and, to be honest, am still not sure what I saw, but it works and works well.