"Synopsis": A Frenchman with a penchant for filming every moment of his life stumbles into the underground. His addictive personality and obsessive fixations lead him to dig deeper and deeper into the world of street art. Tagging along with the most influential artists of our generation (Banksy, Shepard Fairey, and Space Invader), he unwittingly, pseudo-autobiographically documents a movement that has enhanced urban reality and globally, fundamentally altered the way many human beings perceive their surroundings.
Real Synopsis: Banksy is up to his old tricks.
I've touched on Banksy before in previous posts. His art has inspired me in ways I cannot describe. It is so elegantly natural, stylishly impermanent, and tangibly surreal. His art is a paradox of form and function. It serves as an aesthetically pleasing reward to the city-goers who are curious enough to observe the world around them. Banksy claims that he just stencils rats everywhere only because he likes them. I see it as an allegory to his classical conditioning of contemporary culture. He's running an experiment. Keep your heads up, kids. Pay less attention to your iPod and your cellphone. Walls aren't always the same.
Banksy's art is designed to make you stop and think. Shepard Fairey says in the film that he puts the "OBEY" poster everywhere because it gains its power from speculation. It's nothing but an inside joke to him, but to everyone else, it has become an icon. Their imaginations empower the symbol and what was once a simple prank evolves into a revolution on an international scale. (Remember this. It's important.)
I took this picture on 2nd Street in Philly. Now, here's what it boils down to. All the art Banksy and Shepard Fairey and Space Invader make--all of it--is created for one purpose: to encourage every single person who sees it to wonder why it exists. That is all.
They know that nearly everybody will draw different conclusions. The art is alive in that each person who views it will project new, unique meaning onto it. (Ever notice how much Andre looks like a Rorschach inkblot?) They provide the world with an intellectual canvas, a challenge to dream up an explanation, a dare. They psychoanalyze the hivemind. Unintelligent people will simply be amused by the colors and lights, or afraid that it is a terrorist attack, or annoyed that hoodlums think they can scrawl their name anywhere they like. These camps will argue and converse and think of things they never thought before. Their capacity to reason is tested. Intelligent people are more patient. They notice the stir that the poster creates. They see behind the scenes. The world is different now that somebody sprayed some paint on a wall. It's a riot.
It's that simple. Banksy's movie is just like the rest of his art. There are subtle references all along the way. It's not "real," but who's to say what "real" is anyway? Every song he plays, every scene he includes, every word that the narrator says is expertly chosen.
For instance: in the opening sequence that shows graffiti artists deftly making their marks and skillfully evading the fuzz, Banksy cues up "Tonight The Streets are Ours". The song is perfect. First off, it rules. Secondly, it subconsciously, smoothly reveals the message of the film. Listen to the lyrics:
Those people, they got nothing in their souls.
And they make our TV’s blind us
From our vision and our goals.
Oh the trigger of time, it tricks you.
So you have no way to grow.
But do you know that tonight the streets are ours?
Tonight the streets are ours.
These lights in our hearts they tell no lies.
Don't let them tell you what to think. Here: watch this movie. We'll show you how to fight back. Awesome.
Long story short (too late?), Banksy crafts truthfully--and with no clever tricks--presents the story of a total sell-out. Thierry Guetta, the Frenchman behind the camera, becomes so obsessed with street art that he transforms into one. He desperately desires to be accepted into the community, but he loses site of what that means.
Banksy leads into this chapter of the film with an interview of a L.A. art collector. She tells the camera how she *had to have* this one Banksy and then told all her jerk snob friends with "real art collections" (she drops a couple impressive names) about him. They all wanted on. She is so pleased with herself to have discovered such an interesting artist. Pompus ass. She totes around Banksy's cred like she bought it along with the painting. They cut to auctions of Banksy's art. What the fuck! Who's selling it? It's not yours to sell. Everyone's missing the point. Anyway, these are the people Thierry starts to run with. He rolls into L.A. and drops a couple of quotes from Shepard and Banksy (his then friends), turning himself into an overnight sensation with a shit ton of art that's all for sale. It is an absolute Emperor's New Clothes nightmare.
There is so much to say about this part of the movie. Banksy kills it. It's genius. Thierry starts to go by "Mr. Brainwash," he pays art interns and stage designers to photoshop pictures of Elvis and build TV robots. His art is brainless and tired. He throws his doors open as a coming-out party of the hippest new street artist (a man with no talent or vision). Local newspapers eat it up. Yuppies pour in. Teenie-boppers crash the gates to get a glimpse of the scene. It's all so disgusting. All the self-serving douchebags patting each other on the back. "We're so cool man, check out this art. It's so deep." There are few people that are able to see through the charade, that the entire show is a hoax, that Thierry is a fraud and that his "art" is shit. But, they are overwhelmed by the hipsters and the poseurs. They voice their dissent very quietly (if it all) to avoid being stoned to death by the throbbing mob of self-righteous morons surrounding them. A cheesedick in a houndstooth Fargo hat proclaims that the exhibition is spectacular in every way. Turns out there is such a thing as bad press.
Banksy hands these people more than enough rope to hang themselves with. He has flipped the scripts so hard. "Mr. Brainwash" is asked why one of his pieces, an Andy Warhol ripoff consisting of a Campbell's soup/spray paint can, is so ubiquitous. He stutters some gibberish and ends his senseless, babbling answer with "It is because I am."
Thierry's "two day show" turns into a gallery that's open for two months. He makes nearly a million dollars. He cannot contain his excitement. He feels that all of this money and praise validates his existence. He relates, "Even one guy walked up and said, 'You're as good as Banksy.' So it feels good. It feels go to be accepted."
Mr. Brainwash. Thierry didn't pick that name. Banksy's got this movie on lock. He exposes our flaws. The way we process information is simply wrong. The way we think about money, art, ownership. It's all backwards. Humans are so easily confused, they do not take the time to stop and think. Why are we doing this?
Funny thing is: the movie's one big joke. They even say it near the end, in an interview with one of the artists. In discussing how Shepard and Banksy both played such a large hand in creating the monster that is Mr. Brainwash, one of the guys ponders. "I guess the joke's on...well...actually I don't know that there is a joke, really."
Joke's on you. Think about it.
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