Review of Marwencol (2010) by Ryan H — 14 May 2011

An excellent and heartfelt documentary about a man named Mark Hogancamp who was attacked by men at a bar in his home town and he suffered some major brain damage. Mark looks at pictures of himself when he was married and says he can't recall what she was like, only the fact that there are photographs of her. When Mark gets back home he decides to create a Belgium town during WWII era, and he calls it Marwencol. Mark creates the closest people to him in his life within this alternative world of his. With these characters he creates storylines and photographs them with his camera. Mark uses this as a therapy. The men who beat him up took his life from him, now he is creating a life of his own. He says that he couldn't get his mind back, but he fought for his imagination. The movie allows Mark to tell his audience the story that he created within Marwencol and how it has affected his life. Malmberg starts to question what is art. Mark went out and created this town as a type of therapy and took pictures to tell a story. He did it for himself. He needed it so much that he used a camera that had a broken light meter, and if the prints came back over or under exposed he would shoot it all again with a different f-stop. Some guy sees his photographs and decides it is art. Everything is so genuine and beautiful that it has to be art, right?

**SPOILERS**.

Mark reveals later in the film that he was beaten up because he told some guys in the bar that he was a cross-dresser. The present day Mark may not be much of the same guy anymore (he has no want to drink, even though before he was an alcoholic), but he still has the desire to cross-dress. He has over 200 pairs of high heels and he wears them. Towards the end of the film Mark tries to decide what to wear and he says he is too chicken to wear the heels even though it's what he wants. The next day he walks around in heels at the gallery and everyone applauds him. It's seriously one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Mark goes through so much showing this thing that was so personal to him to a large scale, and it almost feels like I have broken into that space and made him uncomfortable while watching this. Marwencol is an amazing film worth watching.