Exit Through The Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010): USA, UK

Reviewed by Larry Gleeson.Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2011 at the Metro Theatre.

Exit Through The Gift Shop, a documentary film about the underground street art world formerly known as graffiti, tells the story of a French-American second-hand clothier, Thierry Guetta, and his drive to explore the underground street art movement. Tabbed as the biggest counter-cultural movement since punk rock, street artists were using stickers, stencil, markers, spray paints in creating their pieces.

The film opens to a catchy pop tune by Richard Hawley, “Tonight the Streets Are Ours,” a tune reminiscent of a Frankie Valle number. Thierry begins telling his story. He buys lots of second hand and/or irregular clothing and resales them at upwards of 800% markups. Thierry appearance, mannerisms, and speech quickly establish himself as a huckster.

Next, Thierry delves into his experiences with a video camera and the dawning of the underground street art movement. Thierry’s cousin, known as “Space Invader” for his tiles that resemble the character from the video game by the same name, allows Thierry to record Space Invaders work. Along the way Thierry is introduced to other street artists such as Neckface, Swoon, Cheez Coma  and Shephard Fairey, the world’s most prolific graffiti artist for his use of pro wrestling’s 7’4″, 450 pound Andre “the Giant’s” mug on a piece of work with OBEY plastered upon walls everywhere. Shephard Fairey also takes credit  for the iconic Obama image.

Fairey allows Thierry to accompany him around the world as they place art work in major metropolitan cities of New York and Paris to document the art work that more often than not is gone the next morning. Thierry envisions making the definitive documentary of the street art movement and likes the element of danger that came with climbing illegally to tops of building and defacing the buildings’ walls.

Throughout Thierry and Shephard Fairey’s exploits one name kept surfacing – Banksy. In a John Galt like manner, the world begin asking, “Who is Banksy?” According to Thierry, Shephard Fairey called one day out of the blue and informed Thierry that Banksy was “here”. Thierry abruptly dropped what he was doing and sped to meet the elusive Banksy.

Thierry immediately put himself at Banksy’s disposal escorting Banksy to all the Los Angeles hotspots. Impressed, Banksy invited Thierry to London, England, as Banksy wanted to begin “showing” his work. Thierry accepted and captured Banksy’s telephone booth “modification” and counterfeit Princess Diana currency culminating in a three day art show on skid row featuring a painted elephant which garnered media attention due to animal rights activists. Street art was now a hot commodity. And a Banksy piece was a welcomed piece in any modern art collection.

Meanwhile, Thierry created his own identifiable image titled Mr. Brainwash. Here the film shifts as Thierry is inept at filmmaking. Banksy talks Thierry into parting with the street art footage so a real documentary can be made. The remainder of the film deals with Thierry creating questionable works of art and his wheeler-dealer antics with his own Mr. Brainwash, “Life is Beautiful” art show with Banksy providing insightful, comedic commentary.

In my opinion the film is a must see. Banksy appears hooded and speaks in a distorted voice in “Exit Through the Gift Shop” hood-wink name for this film.

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Published:
02.14.11 / 10pm
Category:
Documentary, Films, Santa Barbara Film Festival 2011