Exit Through The Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010)
So given my recent response to the 80s film Style Wars, I certainly have a limited appreciation "street art," and frankly, my interest in art documentaries is out of a strong feeling of not getting it. Exit Through The Gift Shop has a few advantages...the guys in focus here have street art that, while still usually vandalism, is definitely more likely to have an "oh, neat" factor. It is also just a more entertaining construction of a film.
Now to stir things up, I probably shouldn't be reviewing this film for this marathon. I'm not convinced this is a documentary. I'm pretty sure that documentarian within the documentary, Thierry Guetta, is comedian and television alcoholic Zane Lamprey in makeup. Or something. Now, even if the filmed interviewer is fictitious ala Borat and Bruno, the rest of this film feels more authentic than Cohen's works. It isn't based on highly contrived interactions or stunts even though it is contrived structurally. Maybe this character of Thierry is just an effective and efficient way of getting to the truth, and in that way it is sufficiently documentary, but I'm not really convinced.
Whatever ETTGS is, it is a really fun, engaging film, and should be seen.