Coming to theatres this Friday, August 28: I TOUCHED ALL YOUR STUFF
Maíra Bühler and Matias Mariani’s unusual chronicle of an unreliable narrator’s love life debuted at Rio last year. It has also screened at FID Marseille, Minneapolis-St Paul, RIDM, and MoMI’s First Look fests, among others.
Initially setting out to document the stories of foreigners in Brazilian prisons, Bühler and Mariani, who appear on camera here throughout, quickly shifted gears once meeting their ultimate protagonist, Christopher Kirk. An American who traded his rote life as an IT consultant in Olympia WA for one of self-stylized “adventure” in Colombia, Kirk relates his story in a well-rehearsed yarn delivered from prison, but what becomes quickly apparent is that this film is not really about how he ended up behind bars. Instead, the focus seems to be on Kirk’s obsessive and exasperating relationship with a Japanese-Colombian woman – referred to only as “V” and only shown in fragmented or blurry visuals – who he suspects, and confirms through shady means, is an unfaithful liar. However, as Bühler and Mariani demonstrate through interviews with Kirk’s friends, V is little more than a MacGuffin here as well, with Kirk himself emerging as the more curious, and potentially even more manipulative, figure. While the filmmakers make a number of frustrating missteps – their largely unnecessary inclusion within the film, Kirk’s groan-inducing voiceover, and the repetitive and not particularly illuminating footage of scrolling through his hard drive – their overall sense of story construction makes the film thoroughly engaging.
what (not) to doc 