Review: Exit Through The Gift Shop

Exit Through The Gift Shop
Director: Banksy
Starring: Thierry Guetta, Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Space Invader
Released by: Madman

In modern art icon Banksy‘s debut feature, he tries to have it every which way. Exit Through The Gift Shop tries to be a visual document of the chaotic early days of street art, a first-person narrative of a crazed fan, an examination of obsession and celebrity, another tantalising appetiser about the notoriously secretive man himself, and a casually cruel stab at the commercial art world. And in every way, the film succeeds gloriously and will leave you talking for weeks.

How can a relatively straight, linear doco do all this? The way the best documentaries have always done it: find a subject almost too amazing to be true. And Exit interweaves a wealth of stories worth marvelling over.

First, it is the finest document of the process of world-famous street artists we’ve seen yet. The guerrilla footage of the best-of-the-best scaling walls, getting harassed by cops, teetering along rooftops and hanging off ladders in the night, their gargantuan paste-ups, stencils and paintings glowing in the street lights, is absolutely thrilling. Contrasted with paint can mishaps and copy shop miseries, the film uncovers the supposedly glamorous outlaw status of street artists.

We also get just enough of a taste of the most famous recluse in the art world. Banksy’s choice to shadow his face, distort his voice and remain anonymous might irritate some but almost all of the joy of mystique is the agony. To use Exit Through The Gift Shop to reveal himself would diminish its power. Due to the subject matter, it is probably the only film he’ll ever make and certainly the best he’ll ever be able to make. Plus, we soon find that this film isn’t really about Banksy.

The strange tale of the man who accumulated all this footage is the true axis. A cousin of Space Invader (famous for his pixel tile mosaics), Thierry Guetta was a perennially camera-toting French thrift shop owner catering to LA hipsters when he became obsessed with the burgeoning street art movement. So he began recording it.

What follows is a bizarre turn of events, narrated by Rhys Ifans and intercut with commentary from Banksy and Shepard Fairey, where the lens gradually turns on the cameraman, who reveals himself to be a kind of delusional conman. Guetta’s transformation runs parallel with the increasing fame of his subjects, the higher prices their pieces command, and the bigger risks the artists take as the mainstream starts jumping on the bandwagon.

To reveal the final third of the film would steal much of the delight and satisfaction from the viewer. The way Banksy has assembled the doco deftly unites the whorl of celebrity, delusion, and out-an-out craziness displayed by Guetta, the public, the media, critics, and art dealers. And it’s hella funny.

Exit Through The Gift Shop‘s story is so odd, yet speaks such profound truth about the unholy marriage of art and commerce, that many have suggested that it’s another hoax by the anonymous prankster artist.  The truth is often stranger than fiction, but if this is a lie, it is a beautiful lie. Whichever way he wants to have it, Banksy has made a brilliant film.

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