Feature: Exit Through The Gift Shop (Film)

In honor of the Oscar nominations for this year having been announced within the last few weeks, I wanted to do a post on one of the best movies of last year and the greatest, most hilarious documentary on graffiti & street art that you'll ever see: Exit Through The Gift Shop.

Exit Through The Gift Shop is a difficult beast to categorize. There is speculation on whether the documentary is genuine - it all seems to insane to be real. The story of Thierry Guetta, a French Immigrant from LA who films everything, discovering his love for street art and being allowed to video tape the most elusive, celebrated, dangerous, and impressive pieces of graffiti as they are being created, is a bizarre one. That's a heavy part of the film's charm.

The eccentricity of Guetta, who the focus of the film is later turned toward, is hilarious and charming and fascinating all at once. The impressive artwork showcased by the various artists featured - including Banksy, who is the creative force behind the film, one of it's primary focuses, and (in my opinion) the greatest street artist of all time - is brought into a new light here. The fact that people question the authenticity of the movie, despite the fact that events of the movie are proven to have happened at the specified times (including the nightmare of an art show at the end of the film), should summarize just how unbelievable some of these moments miraculously caught on film are.

Watch this movie. You'll laugh at the oddness of it all but you'll also learn quite a bit about street art, street artists, and the things they go through to bring their creations to life.