Review of Tarnation (2003) by David H — 18 Oct 2004

Jonathan Caouette is a 32-year-old guy who lives a seemingly normal existence in New York with his boyfriend and their dog. But life wasn't always so normal for Jonathan. As a kid growing up in Texas, his home life was pretty screwed up -- far more so than the lives of most of us who slap the "dysfunctional" label on our childhoods.

Jonathan's mother, Renee, was mentally ill long before he was born. She was a seemingly happy child actress until the age of 12, when she fell off a roof and suffered paralysis. The doctors couldn't find anything physically wrong with her so they concluded it was all in her head. To "help" her, her parents consented to electroshock therapy, which served to turn her into a complete nut job for the rest of her life.

Renee was in and out of mental hospitals throughout Jonathan's childhood. Jonathan lived in several foster homes, but eventually ended up being raised by Renee's parents, freaky religious types. Jonathan wound up with some mental problems of his own and was even institutionalized for a while after smoking some tainted joints which resulted in a very cool-sounding condition called "depersonalization disorder", in which your mind feels detached from your body. But through it all, Jonathan and Renee managed to maintain a close, loving relationship.

Jonathan began making Super-8 movies of himself and his family when he was 11 years old. He upgraded his cameras over the years but he never stopped filming. Last year, after discovering how easy it was to use the iMovie software that came bundled in with his boyfriend's iMac, he felt compelled to try to tell his life story. By piecing together segments from those 20 years of footage with still photos and pop culture snippets, he created "Tarnation", an autobiographical documentary about his relationship with his mother over the years.

This film seemed to have all the makings of a poignant family drama -- the bond between mother and son enduring despite all the insanity, the power of love, and so on. But really, no. Scenes that might be described as "touching" are few and far between in this film.

Some of the footage was terribly uncomfortable to watch. There's an extended segment in which Jonathan, age 11, is dressed in drag and pretends to be a battered woman telling her story of abuse to the camera. There's something pretty creepy about an 11-year-old boy in drag in the first place, let alone portraying a battered woman, but after a few seconds of being subjected to his fake accent and annoying mannerisms -- repeatedly tugging at his hair and wiping his face -- I just wanted to make it stop.

Another overly long and much more current scene features Renee shortly after she overdoses on lithium and suffers brain damage. In most of the earlier footage, she may be a little wacky but she still acts like a somewhat normal adult woman. But in this scene, she seems to have reverted to early childhood, dancing around while cradling a small pumpkin and making up silly songs about it and kissing it and babbling incoherently and giggling and having a merry old time. All the while, Jonathan just keeps the camera rolling and the audience is forced to watch for what feels like an eternity. This scene wouldn't be enjoyable to watch even if Renee really were a goofy 3-year-old, but watching a grown woman whose brain was just fried acting like she's a goofy 3-year-old is excruciating.

But the main problem I had with this film is that there are so many different fancy editing techniques used, it detracts from the story itself. Still photos dividing and subdividing, rapid-fire cuts from one scene to the next, split screens showing four shots at once -- these techniques left me feeling completely detached from characters, like I was watching a music video instead of someone's painful life story.

There were very few scenes where I felt anything at all, other than embarrassment or discomfort. It's clear that Jonathan really loves his mother; in fact he brought her back to New York to live with him after her lithium overdose. That's the part I'm curious about...how can Jonathan still feel so close to his mother given his crazy childhood? And how was Jonathan able to overcome his crazy childhood so that he's now able to sustain a stable, loving adult relationship with his boyfriend? It seems like maybe love is more important than sanity in raising healthy children. I don't know. The answers certainly can't be gleaned from this movie.

This film has gotten rave reviews, with several critics calling it a "masterpiece". I just don't get it. The fact that the initial cut supposedly cost only $218 to make has generated a lot of buzz. And it's certainly nothing if not original. But a "masterpiece"?

I found much of this film very difficult to watch and even more difficult to relate to. But it isn't completely without merit so I'm giving it a 6, which is technically a mild recommendation. But let me qualify: if you're a movie junkie, it's worth a look, but I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone I actually know.