I understand... but...

It seems that much of the technical criticism stems those that weren’t paying attention in the first place. The style of the film was clearly inspired by the underground and horror films that Jonathan was introduced to at a young age. The repetition, the music and film clips… everything was very purposeful and evidently quite deliberate. The film teeters on the cusp of pretentiousness, a pop culture psychological ideology permeates it and yes, Jonathan Caouette does seem to have an indulgent conceit about himself that becomes unfortunately distracting. I could not decide if he was being brutally honest or just vain as he parades an endless barrage of images of himself, still frame and motion, that never present him in an unattractive or hyper-realistic light. There is no doubt the man is good looking but nobody who films themselves over the course of 19 years is going to have footage that is always beautiful to look at. Perhaps he finds his own self-worth that way, who knows? His mother and grandparents are on painfully pragmatic display while Jon’s own eccentricities and bad behaviors are glazed over in poorly realized and excruciatingly slow captioning. We’re told he acted out, but never shown. Considering that he filmed everything else apparently, why would he not have also filmed himself in mid-mayhem? Something tells me that he did and this was conveniently left on the cutting room floor. Now the inclusion of such footage would have nixed the narcissistic criticism immediately! I do understand the condemnation here, it becomes more than a passing thought, Jon’s ego, when we, the audience, is treated to a full on sphincter shot at one point. I would have to agree that much of the film comes across as staged and phony especially the awkwardly pre-planned ending. Seriously, when he touches her upper lip as foreshadowed earlier on the accusation of narcissistic intent is more than validated. She’s obviously not really asleep and the sobbing just before is fake, fake, fake. Still, there is something to be enjoyed here even if it’s in a unique, not-quite-a-documentary-kind-of-way. It is artistic, of that there is little doubt, but it absolutely does lack the non-biased voyeurism of a true documentary. Call it a dramatized autobiography… a retro-New-Wave mistranslation of one’s own life. In this new genre, reality is less of a concern in favor of one’s own prejudiced memory… or even – dare I say - personal agenda. We’ll never know the whole truth and would it even be worth watching if we did? I liked the movie and as I am unsure about the veracity of the story, I can’t quite label it a documentary… but I can say that it is a film that deserves a place in my collection. And that is why I bought it!