My Top 10 documentaries #7. Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

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This one is all about graffiti artists (they call themselves artists, not me...) from around the world as they stealthily battle with the cops and authorities to tag the worlds streets and buildings by night and day. Some of it is art but most of it isn’t and rightfully scrubbed off, often by them on community service. Banksy is by far the most famous of them and has managed to monetize it with his quirky and inventive political stencils around the U.K and beyond. His mystery remains although this film is made by him and so there are clues. AT the heart of the film is the friendship between the unseen Banksy (in the film) and Thierry Guetta, an LA Based Frenchman, a videographer who decides to send up the street culture world he fringes by creating a new persona, Mr Brainwash, the ruse being he will try and pass off his cr*p as modern art and would ‘the scene’ fall for it. Well they did and Banksy joins in the fun We go through some of his latest creations that may or may not be art. We see inside Banksy's world, his ‘helpers’ as busy as the Elves at Christmas seemingly doing most of his work with stencils and spray-paint cans in hand, perhaps why he never gets caught as he’s rarely at the scene of the crime. Is he the real deal or also playing a game of hype and intrigue to value his stuff that is not exactly hard to duplicate most of the time. It’s very funny and clever on how to mess with the art world and although we never see Banksy’s face in the film we kind of get a good feel for him and what’s he’s about. I love these movies that send up modern are and this is hilarious around that.