Surely its fake - A Complete History of My Sexual Failures (2008) Discussion

[–] requiemuk 16 years ago

Just heard a review on bbc radio 5 saying the same thing - apparently it all seems a bit too staged and self indulgent to be taken seriously. That said it's made me want to see it so I'll reserve any judgement until that time.

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[–] chrismid259 16 years ago

How many girlfriends do you need to be dumped by. He must be a real failure.

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[–] aykay 16 years ago

**small spoiler**

I saw it last night, and I spent a while thinking he was laying it on a bit thick, until you start meeting girlfriends and people from his past and hearing what they've got to say about him, and then it's made apparent that he's always been a bit of a drip. There are parts of this film where it looks he's acting up a bit to get a rise out of people (the wonderful song about *beep* he plays to the sex counciller was a bit like Borat, for example), but in my opinion that's true of any documentarian. All in all this is a great film!

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[–] hannahp30 16 years ago

I have just seen this and didn't get the impression it was fake. I think parts might have been over dramatised like aykay suggests above but on the whole is true. He seems like a character that is still a child and takes nothing seriously, even his own impotence. He is a character and sort of plays to that. But the documentary I think is real.

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[–] The_tim 16 years ago

i reckon it's a mockumentary, still a good film, but the cinematography was too good (two cameras for every scene in tiny rooms!) and browsing imdb the actresses credited have been involved with other films.

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[–] orangewarm 16 years ago

I just saw it today...i dont think it is fake...i do think he has taken some parts of life and reworked them ie. i think more than one actress was used...i dont think he is as much of a loser as he makes himself out to be

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[–] aykay 16 years ago

According to the IMDB page, the only actress was 'Danielle McLeod'. The only things she's acted in are other of Chris's films, (except one), but is it not perfectly plausable (with Chris being a film-maker) that one of his girlfriends would be an actress? Duhh...

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[–] AlbinoAl 16 years ago

I too came out of this film comparing it to Borat. There are a lot of real people and some painful home truths exposed here but there are a few scenes that are contrived or set-up to give the best chance of something funny happening. Nothing wrong with that though, this is the funniest film I've seen all year. Go and see it if you can.

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[–] 13tongimp 16 years ago

I'm about 15 minutes in and either it is fake or just plain bad. This is not a good documentary and I'm a huge fan of them. The lead "character" is not interesting, I don't care about his past, present, or future, and the entire thing seems forced and staged. I don't buy into any of it. This is just bad so far and I don't know if I'll finish watching it.

http://www.13tongimp.com/

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[–] bogwart-1 16 years ago

It's not a documentary, it's fiction - although I have no doubt that the director drew extensively on his own experiences. Brilliant film.

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[–] roell29 16 years ago

I thought it was a mocumentary too, but apparently it's a genuine doc - see http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/feature.php?id=539

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[–] bogwart-1 16 years ago

There was a write-up in The Times too, insisting that it was genuine. But I still don't believe it. I think, as I said earlier, that a lot of it was stuff that had happened to him, and maybe the exes were genuine too. At best it was a reconstruction.

But there was much that was phoney. The visit to the SM dungeon, for one thing. His excuse that he had borrowed the money from his mother, for another thing. How much was she worth, for goodness sake? He had funding from the National Lottery and Channel Four, among others. This doesn't stop it being a documentary, but it makes it less likely. He said at some point that he didn't have a job, but he's been working on Fur TV for MTV.

And finally the Viagra. The box we saw was crumpled, bashed around, a long way from being new. He claimed to have taken seven x 100mg tablets, which, if it didn't blind him (pressure in the eyes drops to the extent where a person can't differentiate between blue and green, for instance) would probably have killed him. He never got around to looking at the packs (presumably) which anyone with half a brain would do, and which would have told him that they worked in response to sexual stimulation. They don't work on their own, like painkillers.

So I still believe it was a film, or maybe a mocumentary. But I don't really care. There was some brillliant and wonderfully subversive humour there, and it would be nice to think it will get the recognition it deserves. But I'm not holding my breath.

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[–] jonassten 15 years ago

The director was at the screening at Stockholm Film Festival today, and the Q&A after the movie he said that everything had really happened, and that he was sad to hear some people questioning the authenticity of the movie.

--SPOILER--
Since a year he is still in a relationship with the russian girl he met at the end of the movie, she was at the screening as well, although she seemed a bit awkward about seeing the film.

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[–] robspacey 15 years ago

Yeah it struck me as genuine - i have a good set of ex-girlfriends that would make the same sort of viewing so i can believe that bit.

Some parts seemed acted out though. The bit where his producer rings him and has a go at him for wasting time and money at the beginning for instance - why would you be filming that? I think the producer probably told him to add it in, thinking it would be funny. Just a shame the producer can't act.

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[–] diarmaid_blah_blah 15 years ago

i doubt it's 100% real anyway, for example, his date with Charlie involves a conversation with one camera, yet keeps cutting back and forth during the dialogue, same when he's in bed with the girl he met online.

also take a look at this:
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=oIfWrCb9FQs

according to IMDB he directed all of FurTV and the girl at the end is Alex from the end of the film. While it is possible he just got his girlfriend to do the sketch, it's still a bit odd.
Not to mention the ending was a little too perfect for real life, it's a bit disconcerting to see the ending coming a mile away in a documentary

having said all that, i did enjoy the film a lot

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[–] hkp0lice 15 years ago

Guys, google Alexandra Boyarskaya, she has a flikr acct with tons of pics of her + chris dating back to before the film was released. They also got engaged in 2009.

I think at least her dating chris is real, but if they actually met on the street is questionable.

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[–] ToD-Shortround 15 years ago

It seemed very contrived. No one is stupid enough to eat 7 viagras for example. So much of it just didn't come off natural to me. He was trying to hard to be a dork I think. I bet he's a lot different when the cameras are off.

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[–] podwilliams 15 years ago

I think it's reasonable to say that some documentary films use fact to disguise the truth, as it were. That is to say, yes, all the ex-girlfriends are real, the basic details of his failed relationships are the real deal, the phone calls and 'incidents' are bona fide, etc. But - and it's a big 'but', it seems to me that Waitt used these facts to engineer a black comedy.

Apart from anything else, one simple, banal detail gives the game away. During the first 20 to 30 mins of the film Waitt is told, repeatedly, what a scruffy, unshaven so-and-so he is. Most of us, however scruffy or lazy we may be, will - on hearing this - submit to being tidied up by a sympathetic (and usually female) friend or relative. But Waitt does precisely nothing. He 'ignores' all advice for the obvious reason that it's a 'look' he's affected to lend weight to the film's very premise. Fact and fiction in harmony.

All that aside, it's a great little 'pretend car-crash' of a film.

Edit:
I have a whole different take on the truth of the film that I've totally neglected, regarding Waitt's mental health. But I'll save that for later.

The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won't get much sleep.

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[–] britwrit 14 years ago

Yeah. Vicky Allan, the girlfriend who was engaged to him for four years, wrote an article that appeared in the London Evening Standard a while back. The photos accompanying it show a blond, tan Chris Waitt who could give Brad Pitt a run in the looks department.

Along with the photos in the flicker account, it's obvious that he's a pretty handsome guy (and knows it too). So, the scruffiness is either a put-on or (being very, very charitable) a combination of age and moping about.

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[–] pepeds2002 14 years ago

I also think this is more a mockumentary, but as such it could have been better... At the same time I understand why he staged so much: the story of a decently looking guy who just wants to *beep* all the girls and can't commit to any of his relationships isn't much documentary material...

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[–] 14 years ago

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[–] xdayton 13 years ago

Silly. He's playing for the camera, like when he keeps taking more and more viagra. No one would do that.

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