The first realization I had after viewing Exit Through The Gift Shop was, "Now know who Mr. Brainwash is."
I feel that many documentary filmmakers want the audience to have some kind of visceral reaction their films at their conclusion, but for this film, I felt a sense of joy that I now got another inside joke from one of the many podcasts I listen to each week. Mr. Brainwash is a featured character on one of the recurring bits on The Pod F. Thomkast, the monthly podcast starring comedian Paul F. Thompkins.
Mr. Brainwash is a hilarious impersonation by Mr. Thompkins on the podcast(as well as Gary Marshall, Ice-T, John Lithgow, and John C. Reilly), but in the "real world" Mr. Brainwash is Thierry Guetta, who at times comes off as a caricature as one of the thousands of archetypes that live in and around Los Angeles.
The film is meant to be about street artists and is directed by the world's most notorious street artist, Banksy. Banksy even opens the film, with a hooded face and a modulated voice in a darken warehouse setting, that the film was suppose to be about him, but is in fact about some other guy. The other guy is Thierry Guetta, who later becomes Mr. Brainwash.
Mr. Guetta was a born in France, moves to Los Angeles in the late 1980's, opens a vintage clothing store, gets married, and has kids, but his one idiosyncrasy is that he films everything and I do mean everything, as the film later shows giant Tupperware containers filled with thousands of tapes. His filming does not take on any real meaning until he takes a trip to France to visit family. Guetta learns that his cousin is a street artist name Invader, based off his mosaic-pixel designs that resemble aliens from the arcade game "Space Invaders".
From this point one, Guetta's films have purpose. First he watches how Invader creates then posts his art in public forums. There is a sense of danger initially when watching Invader attach his designs an alley or an overpass, while Guetta is telling him how to adjust the print so it will look level, all while under cover of some darkness.
Street art is Guetta's muse. When he returns to Los Angeles he begins filming other street artists, most notably Shepard Fairey, while Fairey was posting his Andre the Giant "Obey" prints throughout the city. The time with Fairey is interesting, as this is the time before he createsthe "HOPE" campaign posters for Barack Obama. Fairey mentors Guetta in the basics capturing of street art, for example, turning off the spotlight on the camera at night as not to attract the police.
After Fairey comes Guetta's time with Banksy, where the two appear to form a friendship. In London and Los Angeles, Banksy's images are captured through Guetta's lens, as well as the ranges reactions of the people witnesses this art for the first time. The works are ones that most of us have seen in the past ten years, but the staging and implementation of each piece really caught my attention.
The film's turning point comes after Banksy's well-publicized gallery opening in Los Angeles, where through the influence of the other street artists, Guetta becomes Mr. Brainwash, and the film's new focus becomes him.
The time constraints limit me from commenting on the "Is it a hoax?" question that came about last year and the almost controversy during the Oscars, so I'll leave that be, but please read these other reviews of the film if you care to pursue that angle:
Roger Ebert's or The A.V. Club's
Enjoyable look both the street artists and the man who tried to imitate their art.
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