"This place is full of motherf***ing artists!"

There has been a ton of buzz lately about one of my favorite movies of 2010, Exit Through The Gift Shop. It's up for a Best Documentary Oscar, despite some controversy as to whether or not it's a hoax. In case you haven't seen it, I have a pretty nondescript trailer below, and you can also watch it for free on Hulu or Netflix Instant Streaming. I highly recommend it, especially if you are at all interested in art/being an artist/buying art.

Basically, we have the story of the transformation of Thierry Guetta from t-shirt hustler to documentary filmmaker to bona fide artist, all the while paying serious homage to big street art names. I've now watched the movie three times: once with friends, once with my parents, and once with my fiancée. Each time, Thierry's dialogue seems more disjointed and spastic, and I get even more frustrated with the whole creative process.

As someone who has always considered graffiti/street art "legitimate" art, I have an immensely hard time watching Thierry's production process. He basically gets the go-ahead from Banksy to be an artist (something he never seemed inclined to do before - he was fine filming artists and helping them out, but never seemed to have any creative ideas), somehow skips the whole creative process and goes directly to selling works he hasn't even made. He takes credit for work that he had very little hand in and becomes an overnight sensation. Personally, I feel that devalues the creative process - aren't we supposed to work on ideas, craft them, and purposefully create in order to make something? Or can we just change the color of someone else's work, slap our name on it and call it our own?

I would also like to point out that the only creative thing Thierry does in the entire movie is walk around and film stuff from different angles. He has ideas for paintings, but they are almost all rip-offs of Warhol and all the street artists he met over the years. Banksy has a superb line at the end of the film,

"Warhol repeated iconic images until they became meaningless, but there was still something iconic about them. Thierry really makes them meaningless."

As a result, neither Banksy nor Shepard Fairey really encourage people they meet to make art anymore, which I think is kind of sad. I still believe that everyone can make art, because everyone has a different way of looking at the world and therefore can translate the world in a different way. That being said, not everyone has what it takes to be a true artist - to work and create and develop a style, even one that changes. It's easier to just copy.

Imagine

I sat down today and decided I was going to watch a movie that has alternated between piquing my curiosity with its beauty and disgusting me with its title and concept. That's right: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

I'm sure the story changed a bit after Heath Ledger died, because the plot of the movie is absolutely absurd and full of holes. For anyone who doesn't know, the movie concerns itself with one Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), an immortal man who keeps the universe spinning by telling stories, and his daughter Valentina (played strikingly by supermodel Lily Cole) who wants to leave her father's ramshackle sideshow operation for a domestic life out of Martha Stewart Living. Parnassus just wants to protect his little girl, most notably from the devil (Tom Waits), to whom she was promised before her birth. Faustian adventures abound for these two, and for most of the movie a possibly-shady-possibly-valiant Heath Ledger/Johnny Depp/Jude Law/Colin Farrell swaggers around the real and imaginary worlds, either messing things up or working miracles.

The imaginary world really carries this movie. The real world is, well, real: it's full of drunken jerks and crooked politicians and greedy socialites. Surrounded by all that, the double-decker sideshow theatre looks like a Baroque painting of a Greek myth. That's a comfort in itself, but once you go into your imaginary world, things just keep getting better. They were all designed to resemble famous paintings, but all eventually grow rampant in their own creative directions (gondolas, Willy Wonka candy-scapes, celestial lily pads and lotus blossoms, pop-up forests, designer shoes and Fabergé eggs, deserts, ladders to clouds, you name it). It's divine just relaxing and enjoying these dream worlds while they last.

Unfortunately, like every other dream, you have to wake up and try to make sense of the plot of this movie. If you want a great movie about imaginary worlds and their real-life consequences, watch The Fall (then buy it on Blu-Ray, because you will want to watch it again).

Reveling in the sumptuous beauty,

K

An Old-Fashioned Love Story with an Empowering Message

I just rewatched one of my favorite Bollywood movies, a charming folk story called Paheli. The sets, the costumes, the music and the actors are all superb, but what I really love about it is its ability to transform my mood whenever I watch it.

Paheli (meaning "riddle" in Hindi) tells the story of a young woman named Lachchi (played by one of my favorite actresses, Rani Mukherji), who is engaged to be married to a trader's son named Kishan (played by Bollywood superstar Shah Ruhk Khan). Kishan is something of a weenie, he always cowers before his father and is obsessed with his accounts. He takes so much care to balance the wedding accounts that he appears to be uninterested in consummating the marriage, but soon reveals that he just doesn't want to get Lachchi's hopes up, since he plans to leave the very next day on a five-year business trip. Lachchi is devastated, but comforted by the women of the house.

However, as soon as Kishan leaves, a spirit who had fallen in love with Lachchi comes to the house, in the form of Kishan! He fools the entire household into thinking he's the real son, but he tells the truth to Lachchi, wanting her to love him in return. She accepts the spirit's love and devotion in exchange for that of her real husband, and they spend four happy years together. Unfortunately, she becomes pregnant by the spirit, and news reaches her husband away on business. The real Kishan comes back, and the family can't tell their son from the impostor. A wise old shepherd manages to solve the riddle, but I won't spoil the ending for you if you want to see the movie.

While it's fun to watch the family's antics and worry about whether the spirit will be with Lachchi in the end, what I found really inspiring was the feminist message of the film. At the beginning, Lachchi is completely powerless, married to a man who doesn't seem to really love her, alone at the start of her married life and (if this were more realistic India) in no position of power until she bears a son. She has all of the burdens of being subordinate to her husband, but none of the benefits. When the spirit comes along, he seems to be a man made out of female desires:

"I am the yearning that resides in a woman's heart...that's who I am. I'm the love she wants."

While the real Kishan is away importing and exporting and tallying figures, the spirit Kishan dotes on Lachchi, his reason for living. Not only does he listen to her and help her fulfill her desires, he treats her like an equal. When she gets mad at him for using magic to help the family, he listens to her and promises never to use magic again, so she can "forget that he is a ghost" and believe he is her human husband. He also builds a well in the town and strikes water, ensuring a secure future for everyone. Though everyone attributes these successes to the spirit Kishan, he is really acting as Lachchi.

Lachchi also grows throughout the film. Starting off a naive young bride, the spirit gives her courage to be assertive right off the bat. When he reveals himself to her and asks her whether or not she wants him to stay, she immediately bursts into tears and replies, "No one ever asked me my wish." She becomes empowered by his love for her, turning her into an excellent wife and mother without withering her youthful qualities of joy and grace. She even has the courage to tell the real Kishan the truth - that the spirit did not deceive her and seduce her, that she chose him for his honesty and pure love. At a time when men were the beginning and end of conversation, this is a great example of a woman's grace and power over her life.

Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke, Phil Milenge Chalte Chalte!

K

Guilty Pleasures

I recently decided that I was going to do something that most women do way before they're my age: I decided to watch Sex And The City all the way through. I didn't invite my friends over for drinks and partying while we shared the experience, I chose to watch it alone. Maybe it's backwards, seeing the series after the two movies, but I think I've reached an age where I should stop caring whether people judge me or not.

For YEARS, I've known women who squeal, "I'm a Carrie!" or "I'm Samantha!" or any member of the quartet at the drop of a hat. What is it about these women that's so identifiable? If there was one thing I wish I could identify with them on, it would be their jobs - owning a PR firm, writing a successful column (when you can pay for an apartment with your writing, you're a success), dealing art, lawyering - not their sex lives. Anyone can have sex, you have to work hard to be professionally successful and financially independent. Maybe that's something that other women see too: we all have sex, even if we're too poor to afford fancy shoes.

There are also identifiable points about all these women that I think everyone can find within themselves: Samantha is outspoken in a way we all wish we were, Miranda is all kinds of intelligent, and Charlotte is an idealist and a really genuinely nice person. Yet they are still put into cookie-cutter stereotypes: the libertine, the career woman, the conservative. Maybe that's why there are no "I'm a Charlotte" t-shirts.

So what's so different about Carrie? She's average enough in her lifestyle that she can represent the viewer - she didn't start off the series wearing designer clothes and lavish jewelry, she eats greasy Chinese instead of gourmet cuisine, the first time we even see her we see her fingers smudging out a cigarette into a half-full ashtray, something distinctly un-glamorous and imperfect. She's smart but not a genius, romantic but not a sap, powerful but not overpowering. She is quintessentially average.

I do feel like I'm a Carrie, if I were to be one of them. I mix expensive pieces with flea-market finds, I take a lot of risks when it comes to my appearance, and I am generally a pretty creative person. I had flings, but I eventually settled down and found true love, and I do worry I'm going to be one of those boring married women. I totally identify, and part of that is what made me spend money on those ridiculous movies and 19 slots on my fiancées Netflix queue.

Fierce love to you all,

K