Geekscape’s Exit Through The Gift Shop Review

I can’t remember when I first heard about Banksy, the often satirical, mostly subversive, constantly controversial street artist and director of the new film Exit Through The Gift Shop. It might have been when he took a trip to the West Bank and did a series of graffiti depicting beach scenes through broken pieces of the famous wall. It might have been when he took it upon himself to “improve” the sales of Paris Hilton’s debut album by sneaking into record stores across London and replace her CDs with his own versions. I know it was definitely when he held an art show in LA and invited everyone in Hollywood to take a look at the elephant in the room.

Banksy has always been a man of mystery. More so than any of his other street artists. No one has really been able to identify the man. The most we know is that he is British with a penchant for apes. So, when I heard that he had allowed a documentary to be made about him, I was shocked. And of course, very very interested. What I got when seeing the movie, though, was a thoroughly Banksy-style “bait and switch”.

Exit Through The Gift Shop is not a documentary about Banksy… It is a documentary about the man who tried to make a documentary about Banksy. The man in question is Thierry Guetta (pronounced Terry). Thierry is a native Frenchman who relocated to LA in the 80’s and ran a pretty successful vintage clothing shop. He also had a love of filming EVERYTHING. After visiting his cousin in France, who as it turns out, is pretty well known street artist named Invader, his filming takes on a focus: street art.

For those of us that don’t know what street art is, it’s what lots of people consider graffiti, but it’s not… but it is… While graffiti is mostly known as the paintspray scrawl on an overpass or billboard, street art takes it to the next level. When you see a beautiful piece of artistic work made on the side of a building, or a sticker placed in various places with seemingly no meaning, or a shadow of a bench painted on the ground… that is street art. The movement came from the fact that most people consider art something that lasts forever, hanging in museums. Street art shows that this doesn’t have to be the case. Art can be as fleeting as the moment.

But I digress. Thierry falls in love with the art and starts filming the artists themselves. At first he just follows his cousin around, then he is introduced to the likes of Shepard Fairey (creator of the prolific OBEY campaign and later the Obama posters), Zeus and Borf. He continues to film these heavy-weights for years, but always wants to get the holy grail, Banksy.

When his opportunity finally arrives, he wastes no time and fully embeds himself with the enigmatic Banksy. Finally, Banksy feels it is time that word get out about the street art movement and asks Guetta to put together his masterpiece from the years and years of footage that he has. Thierry does this and what we get is a “Life Remote Control”. I won’t bother describing it, but let’s just say it is less than “good”, in Banksy’s opinion. After seeing his movie Banksy asks Thierry for all of his tapes and sends him back to LA with one goal: make his own art and report back.

This is where the movie turns into an almost real life version of “Trading Places”. Once back in LA, Theirry starts going at his task in a HUGE way. He takes all that he has learned from his years of tagging along within the world and creates his own art. (Sort of.) He fashions himself an artist, making his own stickers, placing his own posters, even creating his own persona: Mr. BrainWash. Of course, being Theirry, he goes way overboard and instead of only making a few works and having a tiny art show, he creates a behemoth. He sells his store and puts a second mortgage on his house so that he can rent out an old network studio building and hire lots of paid, gallery artists to make his work for him. Essentially he creates his own museum and fills it with his “art”. (Though I question whether I should be putting the quotes around “his” too, but hey, Warhol did it.) The goal that Banksy had sent him to do is completed… and well beyond what Banksy himself thought possible.

The questions that this last section bring up for the audience member is what I think really sold me on the whole movie. It asks, what is art? Is art something that comes from one’s experiences and one’s own attitude? Or can anything be considered art as long as it is marketed as “art”? 

It’s a movie about street art, that feels in itself, like a piece of street art. The spiral from point A to point B back to point A via B is insane and very satisfying. There is a lot of humor in it, mainly coming off of how very strange the film’s subject, Thierry Guetta, is. There are points where I found myself kind of sad for the man as it is pretty obvious that there is some underlying psychological issues at play, but never enough to make it a drama.

I would have to say that if you have the opportunity to see this movie, you should definitely treat yourself to it. Whether this the first time you have heard about Banksy and street art, or if you are a long time fan, it really delivers a great experience. It is in a limited run in theatres right now, but is expanding to more cities every week. Check out the website for more details.

In the end you know that Banksy has done his job when one of the people I went to see the movie with said, “The movie was great, but I really want to see the movie that Banksy did on the guy who made this documentary on him.” To which I had to explain that she already had, it’s called Exit Through The Gift Shop.