Catfish

This review is full of spoilers, so I recommend not reading it if you haven't seen the film first.

"Catfish" is a moderately entertaining look at how Facebook and other online communication breeds obsession and strange franticness, for its first 3/4. But when the film in its last quarter decides to make a big reveal, it becomes much less interesting, much less direct, and much less ethically sound.

The filmmakers, Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, have not gone the Casey Affleck route and admitted that they've made a mockumentary, so there still is legitimacy in the positions of considering it real or fake. Thinking of it as real, I side with my reader Cristina Acuna, who asked: "Why is nothing private anymore?" The film is about how Ariel's brother Nev talked to people he'd never met or seen before. However, it drifts beyond the innocuous. It begins when a girl from Michigan sends Nev paintings of his photographs. He engages in insane amounts of talk on email and chat, branching beyond the girl, Abby, to her mother Angela, and finally to her half-sister Megan. He starts to, through Megan's Facebook photos, develop an interest in her. They get up to the point (with sweet talk and everything) where if they met each other, they'd really be in a relationship. So Nev decides, when out west, to go.

When they are at another stop, Nev starts to find some problems. He finds that Abby's supposed art gallery hasn't been in operation for years, that Megan keeps sending him songs she apparently covered, but instead ripped off of Youtube and the rest of the Internet, and that her ranch is empty. But what should be an anvil drop isn't when we find Angela at home, holding Megan's phone as well as hers, painting, and updating over ten different fake Facebook profiles. If this film is real, it's exploitative to the max and I don't think that it should have been made into a movie for everyone to see. That they did means that either the Schulman and Joost are the imposing scoundrels everyone says they are, or they set it all up.

I think the film could get off pretty much unscathed (if a bit cheesy) if it were fake, save one thing: at the end of the film, there is a listing that one of Angela's mentally-challenged sons died. To create that sort of stuff in the way that Schulman and Joost (may) have to me is somewhat inexcusable. If the film is fake, they obviously put it in there to try to fake authenticity. But it just sort of makes me sick.

So it's a paradox: the film is shaky either way (much like Simon Abrams noted about "Exit Through the Gift Shop," in a piece I disagree with all the same but still admire). Ariel told me that it was as real, and if he wants to go that way, let him, though I'm unsure of what good that does the movie. C+

An Interview with Ariel Schulman, co-director of "Catfish"

Schulman (second from left) (src)

"Catfish" opened in New York City on September 17 and it will expand to more cities.

Flick Pick Monster: What is the significance of the title “Catfish”?

Ariel Schulman: The reason for the title becomes clear at the end of the movie. I don't want to give it away here, but I will say it's significance to the story came as a total surprise to me. I’ve never heard the word catfish used in this way.

FPM: What was it about Nev’s and Megan’s communications that made you want to make this film?

AS: It was actually Nev’s relationship with Megan’s little sister Abby that made me want to start filming. She was 8 and totally inspired by his photography, inspired enough to paint from his photos every night and send them to him. And the paintings were good[;] that's plenty of reasoning to start making what I thought would be a short film.

FPM: What would you say to those who say that the film was made-up?

AS: We’re not smart enough to make all this up.

FPM: Reader Cristina Acuna asks: Why film any of it to begin with? Why is nothing private anymore?

AS: It's my brothers life and he is my muse, I love watching him and filming him. I'd tell Cristina Acuna that there is in fact plenty of private footage she will never see.

FPM: Was the reason that you collaborated with Henry Joost that you were his art director? Describe this partnership.

AS: I was Henry’s art director on “New York Export: Opus Jazz.” We trade off roles depending on the project. We’re like ham and eggs, perfect together. But sometimes you just want two helpings of eggs.

FPM: What was “Jerry Ruis, Shall We Do This?,” your short film with Joshua Safdie? You were also his art director on “Daddy Longlegs” and on others of his films, as well as an actor in “The Adventures of Slaters’s Friend.” Do you think you will make another film with him?

AS: “Jerry Ruis” is a crazy short Safdie and I made in my mom’s apartment. He's my oldest friend in the world. We used to direct a lot of shorts together when I was a member of Red Bucket Films, before Henry and I started Supermarché. Safdie and I are writing a sequel called "John Gotti's Maserati.”

FPM: Do you prefer being a director or an art director?

AS: Being a director takes a lot of guts. Being an art director allows me to work creatively on other peoples movies. And to buy cool props that I get to keep.

FPM: Who are the biggest influences on your filmmaking?

AS: Woody Allen, Werner Herzog, Roman Polanski, and Josh Safdie.

FPM: What do you think your next project will be? Are you open to doing another documentary?

AS: Truth is stranger than fiction; I'll make documentaries for the rest of my life. But for my next feature film, Joost and I are writing a narrative thriller. I'm also working on publishing a book of the Catfish correspondence.