Exit through the gift shop

Exit through the gift shop is a story about an amateur French film maker, Thierry Guetta, who always travels around with a video camera and records every and anything he sees. He had a fascination with street artists and followed them around to film how they went about with their projects. Thierry ultimately manages to locate and befriend Banksy and ends up becoming a street artists overnight. 

 

The elements that were believable in the movie would be the fact that it was mainly factual and backed up with actual footage of the people Thierry shot and of his own life as well. Throughout the film, there were moments whereby there will be two people talking about the same issue and their accounts would match up making it sound believable. For example, when Thierry was filming Invader, they would talk about each other and their accounts would match. Thierry would explain the process behind his filming like how he would be with the artist at every step of the way even if it means climbing to a dangerous spot and in fact sometimes even climbing higher than the artist to get a good shot. Invader would then recount and agree to this stating how Thierry was very diligent with the filming and would never stop filming. Another example would be when Banksy was describing his first encounter with Thierry and how Thierry had said that he could and would do anything for him and Thierry would be in the next scene being interviewed and talking about how excited he was and how willing he was to get down to helping Banksy. In fact according to Banksy when he said that he did not have a phone with him, Thierry actually went out to buy him a phone with credit and even said that he would drive him anywhere if he needed. This film was also believable because Thierry had interviewed a lot of actual famous graffiti artists like Swoon, Born and Buffmonster which gives credibility to him. The music used in the film also help add on to its believability. During the time when Thierry was giving his personal background story of how his mother died, there were childhood pictures and it explained the link between why he was so obsessed with filming everything in his life because he wanted the make the moment live forever.  The background music at that time was very appropriate and set to mood to be melancholy in order to evoke a sense of sympathy and empathy within the viewers. 

However, there were some moments in the film that was not so believable as well. The fact that the viewers had no way of seeing Banksy took away the credibility of the film. The beginning scene of a person with a dark face and a censored voice made it hard to believe that the person sitting there was actually Banksy. The only thing that was convincing about it was that this person spoke with a British accent given how Banksy was from the UK. Also, half way through the show Thierry had admitted that he had never actually planned on making a documentary about graffiti artists. In fact all the rolls of film that he had shot simply stayed stored away in boxes, never organised or categorised. It made one wonder if this entire movie was in fact a hoax and a trick that Banksy was playing on the audience. The name in which Thierry took on when he became a street artist was Mr Brainwash which adds on to the suspicion that this was all part of Banksy's hoax and perhaps a way of mocking how people would believe anything that was put up on the big screen. Even if this movie was not a hoax, it was also unbelievable that Banksy would actually let Thierry, a complete stranger from France who was known to never go around without a video camera, document his actions. Banksy was known to be extremely secretive with his identity and for him to allow Thierry to do what he did could very well jeopardise his entire movement and what he stood for. Even though he would only allow Thierry to film his hands and from behind and required to check the tape afterwards, it still puzzles the viewer why Banksy would allow him to do so. Also, there was never a moment in the  film that the two of them were seen together as opposed to the way it was with the rest of the artists where Thierry and them would be seen together conversing on set. 

The purpose of the film was to follow the movement of street art but ultimately it could also be seen as a commentary about street art and the value of it both in terms of money and the way people regarded it. Banksy appeared to have a change in his view of art at the end of the film there was a moment where he stated how he would always encourage any and everyone to go out there and make art and that how after the case of Thierry, he actually said that he did not say that often now. It questioned the role of money in art. Did it corrupt the artist and is this thus an explanation of why Banksy wanted to keep his identity as anonymous as possible? Through the case of Thierry's overnight success to becoming a best selling street artist, it showed a change in Thierry's beliefs and behaviours. He seemed to had genuine interest in street art in the beginning following and going behind the scenes of their projects but once he became an artist himself he did not seem to care about his work but rather the fame that entails it. For example on the day of his opening show, his work was not even up 3 hours before the opening and when that was so he was outside getting interviewed by someone, not even bothering to direct what went on inside the gallery when he had just said moments earlier that he was in charge that day and everything had to have his approval. Also, when he was talking about the offers that he made to the buyers he did it based on how he was feeling without giving it much real thought and as such questioning how the value of art is in fact created. Perhaps this film was a statement as to why Banksy had kept so low key, to prevent himself from falling into the traps of fame and fortune and to stay pure to art.