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Let me start with a spoiler alert. This review will divulge the
surprise ending of a documentary largely marketed on the basis of
“don’t reveal the surprise ending to your friends”, a gimmick
going back to the 1950s at least. If you want to read a review
that does not spill the beans, go to Rotten Tomatoes. As an
unrepentant Marxist, however, my aim is to examine this movie from
the standpoint of American society in general and the phenomenon
of “social networking” in particular, especially as it relates to
my last review of The Social Network. Not only do these two movies
put Facebook at the narrative core; they also blur the lines
between fact and fiction.
“Catfish” tells the story of Nev Schulman, a young, handsome and
hip photographer, who shares an office in Soho with his brother
Ariel and with Henry Joost who are partners in a film-making
business called Supermarché. The two brothers and Joost are about
as “plugged in” as anybody you can imagine, with Iphones, video
cameras, laptop computers and other paraphernalia never more than
an arm’s length away. Ariel and Joost are compulsive videographers
and Nev is their favorite subject. All three look like Calvin
Klein models and that’s one reason to feel put off by them, right
off the bat. There is something about filming Nev that might
strike one as a kind of incestuous narcissism, as conveyed through
Ariel’s remarks in a Filmmaker Magazine interview:
Henry and I film our lives constantly. We use our cameras like
little sketchbooks, we’re obsessive chroniclers. For me, it’s
because of dependency on my visual memory — I have no sense of
smell, I have a muted sense of taste, so I don’t want to forget
anything I see. On top of that, there are just tiny moments of
beauty every day, not to sound like the kid from American Beauty,
but wonderful things are happening every day, and I don’t want to
miss them. I think it’s generational. I film my brother all the
time. His life is just full of crazy stories, and I get a little
pang of guilt every time I don’t get one on film. So we just have
stacks and stacks of hard drives of little things that have
happened to us that haven’t gone anywhere. This one turned into
something. If it hadn’t, it would be just another folder in my
hard drive of 2008 video clips.
This is just a long-winded way of saying that they are into
navel-gazing, but that is to be expected when your bellybutton is
so beautiful.
full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/catfish/
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