Tarnation
Directed by Jonathan Caouette.
Starring: Renee Leblanc (Herself), Jonathon Caoutte (Himself), Adolph Davis
(Himself), Rosemary Davis (Himself), David Sanin Paz (Himself).
If documentary is the closest we get to a representation of the ‘real’, then it would seem that there is very little room for eccentric artistic expression in such ‘documents’. Not the case with Tarnation. This doco creates room for art. In fact, it bursts through any walls and gives us an enormous amount of space to appreciate a unique and creative and highly personal articulation.
Jonathan Caouette has been making films since he was a child. And this we know because in his telling documentary of his mother’s mental illness, we see these films. Alongside phone messages, montages of photographs and home movies — more than two decades of footage — we learn of the genesis of his mother Renee’s mental illness, see the disintegration of her mind and sympathise with Jonathan’s fears that his mind too will one day crumble.
As we begin to understand Renee’s illness, we get to know Jonathan. The most powerful insights into his life are his self-made monologues in which, at the age of eleven, he becomes an abused wife or a drug addict in front of the camera. These too are done in documentary-style, thus adding an eerie feel to the entire project so one seems to be questioning whether Jonathan always knew he would make this film. Through digital play and technicolour coding, we are witness to the transformation of archival footage into works of art, and the scope of the project, the telling of a life, two lives, in fact, is so great that this movie is one you will be talking about for a very long time (I left the movie trembling). It is life: in all of its horror, injustice, mystery and beauty.
As an aside, I tend to trust anything Gus Van Sant puts his name to and for those of you who are fans as well, Van Sant produced this film and you can see that content-wise and imagistically, this is a movie that he would proudly put his name to.
Heather Taylor Johnson
Jonathon Caoutte is the son of Renee Leblanc who as a young girl was lauded for her beauty until at the age of thirteen an incident turned her world upside down. For the rest of her life she was plagued with breakdown and hospitalization. Jonathon was brought up by his grandparents. He was thus subjected literally to his mother's upbringing.
Truth enlarges this little movie. It is a truth that encompasses all the facets of being including, the desperation to be seen, to be admired and to be loved. Jonathon Caoutte's personal beauty is essential to the film's success and in fact, possibly what got it off the ground in the first place.
However Joe is also a consummate performer. This is not surprising, considering the lineage from which he hails and most likely draws when, as a pubescent boy, he gives a 'stand out' performance of a Southern Belle in desperate need of the 'kindness of strangers'.
This blatantly 'gay' movie goes beyond, and beneath, to a psychology that resonates with all of the 'big theories' and most importantly, with the mundane and the sacred in our own lives.
Within the harrowing narrative of Joe's family history there exists a contraire 'way out'. His grandfather tells that we are all, at birth, touched by an angel to forget it ever was otherwise. This unknown 'other', is the only offered antidote to a 'bleak reality'.
While entertaining as the multi media montage collage that this film is, it is also a serious story about the construction of mental illness and commendably reminds us that "Your greatest creation is the life you lead".
Lou Crow
