“..THE MAVERICK SURPRISE: Exit Through the Gift Shop: dir: Banksy
The first film from the street-art prankster Banksy was unexpectedly popular with the Sundance crowd ..
.. whose only experience of the artist’s guerrilla tactics was the mysterious appearance of five of his works around town.
Screened in the publicity-shy director’s absence, Exit Through the Gift Shop left some viewers wondering if Banksy really was sitting next to them ..
.. as the Sundance staffer introducing the film had hinted ..
.. although many more were left wondering how much of this funny and provocative documentary was actually true.
Starting with an exhilarating montage of graffiti artists at work, the film goes on to tell the story of one Thierry Guetta ..
.. an LA-based Frenchman who, in the early Noughties, tired of his day job selling vintage clothes and began documenting the work of his cousin, a street artist named Space Invader.
Through Invader, Guetta began moving in street-art circles, and, because of an Asperger’s-like addiction to filming, decided that he would chart the rise of this movement.
In this capacity, he gets every graffiti star on film, but one eludes him: the faceless Banksy, whom he pursues and befriends.
So far, this is all quite plausible ..
.. but what follows becomes a quite Banksyan meditation on creativity and fame..”
go to source/story>>Banksy and Chris Morris prove hits at the Sundance Film Festival – Times Online
