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Flick Flak: Catfish

Postiwyd gan neilramsden o Caerdydd - Cyhoeddwyd ar 10/01/2011 am 17:54
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Catfish
Directors: Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost
12A, 88 mins

Catfish is an odd little film, with a surprising amount of hype and discussion around it. Is it a documentary or staged? Was it marketed unfairly? Has anyone actually heard of it?

Essentially this is the idea: Nev Schulman is a photographer in New York, who strikes up a friendship via Facebook with an 8-year-old girl called Abby. She paints pictures of his photographs to a pretty good standard, and fascinated, Nev has befriended her and her family (obviously, it would be a bit weird to just talk to her online). His brother Ariel and their friend Henry, film-makers who share an office with Nev, record the beginnings of the story because it is interesting, and because it is what they do. Soon Nev's friendship with Abby's sister Megan develops into more than that, and Nev is chuffed that he's getting close to this attractive girl and her family, who are all "awesome. Well, as far as I can tell from Facebook".

And therein lies the beginnings of a weird story about how people can be anybody they want on the Internet. I'm saying no more about the plot, though you probably think you know where it's going to go anyway. The truth is the plot does not have a huge twist that you don't see coming (even though the film's tagline, "Don't let anybody tell you what it is", suggests otherwise). However this matters little - it's still a deeply unsettling, sad and tense film. It has been accused of pretending to be a thriller when in fact it's a documentary, and of being staged when it's pretending to be a documentary (if none of it at all is real, then Nev Schulman is one hell of an actor). It also created a unique buzz when the trailer came out, as it was accompanied by people declaring that you shouldn't watch the trailer - thus instantly making people want to watch the film for which even a trailer reveals where the plot will go.

There is a lot of talk online about whether or not it is a documentary - American TV show 20/20 recently featured an episode where they spoke to the family in question, which obviously suggests that the bulk of the plot is real. It seems likely that the three main characters were not as oblivious as they make out for the purposes of the film, and that some of the scenes were probably staged, but I was not remotely dwelling on this while watching - I was varyingly sitting open-mouthed or with my face in my hands. In many of the scenes you really feel for Nev, as I at least believed he was kind of falling for Megan, even though he was always quick to point out that he couldn't love somebody he'd never met. Parts of the film are almost painfully personal, especially when Nev angrily tells his brother that he doesn't really want to have his love-life as the subject of a film. One scene typifies how awkward and invasive the film can feel, as Nev reads some of the sexy texts he has exchanged with Megan, which is simultaneously funny, embarrassing and sad.

I rented this film, though it only just briefly appeared in cinemas. If you can get your hands on it, it is well worth a watch. I've been trying to find others who've seen it to talk to about it, as it's a film which really provokes discussion, and I urge everyone to try and catch it. It is dark, tense, in places funny and others sad, and is an interesting look at the reliability of social networking.

As a side note, I have just started a movie blog which you can find at http://facehugger.tumblr.com. I'll be writing the usual reviews as well as news and film features when they occur to me, so if you have an interest in movies then have a look!

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