Catfish

I watched Catfish last night (you can download the film on iTunes or learn more about it here and here). It’s an award-winning documentary by directors Rel Schulman and Henry Joost, and since its premiere at Sundance it keeps on getting one great review after another. Last night, it mysteriously appeared on the “top movies” list of my Apple TV (which is somewhat peculiar for a documentary), so I downloaded it. Talking about this film is quite tricky because I don’t intend to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it. I’m compelled to share though that it consists of mouth-watering twists ad turns and a brilliantly effortless use of the technologies that nowadays define our everyday lives as social beings.

What I loved most about Catfish were its filmmakers themselves. They were present, vocal and playful, and never seemed to care too much about what they were doing, except when things got tricky, and that’s when they proved they were not afraid at all to jump into deep waters. In fact, they showed great reflexes. Most of all though, they were my favorite part of the film because they seemed (and most probably were) as clueless as their audience. That is what makes their film so interesting. Granted, documentary is supposed to be a genre that unfolds some kind of truth in front of the camera (or some particular person’s truth, as my freshman filmmaker mother would say). But in Mr. Schulman’s and Mr. Joost’s film, this cluelessness is complemented by a natural unfolding of emotions that is exactly what drives their choices and the direction the film takes in its second half. Catfish does not only document the search for a certain truth; it documents how human emotions can end up tampering with that search altogether. And that is a whole different kind of truth…