Review of Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) by Ryan G — 05 Jun 2011

At times when watching a monotonous documentary, there are feelings as though I was placed in a relatively interesting history class. In other words, while many documentaries have some appeal to them, a lot of them lean towards the "let's lecture the audience" motive instead of actually creating an entertaining experience. Exit Through The Gift Shop breaks this mold and instead creates a documentary that creates a narrative filled with comedy and artistry that depending on the person, one would hardly disregard.

Exit Through The Gift Shop is the creation of controversial and well-acclaimed street artist Banksy. Banksy is known for his satirical forms of street art that are both intrinsic and message-inducing. While the trailer for this film advertises this as a "Banksy film," the film focuses on a rag-to-riches story of street artist/film director Thierry Guetta. Guetta is first portrayed as a film-maker who documents the unknown world of street art documenting artists such as Shepherd Ferry (Obey) and later on Banksy. He then is given the role as Banksy's assistant and is even later to referred as "his accomplice." In the latter portion of the documentary, Banksy and Ferry help Guetta rise to fame in a matter of days giving him blatant support to become a street artist overnight under the alias "Mr Brainwash.".

There has been wide speculation that Guetta's story is another of Bansky's pranks to fool its audience, hence the "Brainwash." The artistry that is induced within Guetta's works are of ridicule and it causes the audience to question the factuality of the film overall. While that may be called to question, there is no doubt that the film is entertaining. There are some stunning pieces of street art and present is an insight of this sub-mainstream movement. Banksy displays how street art is slowly being sold-out and that it is slowly become more prevalent in society than ever before. Overall, this film is insightful as well as engaging; it is crafted in a manner that it displays a fully played out story, with many elements contributing to the film's overall success. It never seizes to be fascinating, and there is a sense of completeness that is absent in many movies of its genre. Anyone with interest in the world of street art or art as a whole will find Banksy's film to be both compelling and intuitive.