Film Fridays: Tarnation’s Innovation

By Sarah Lazarovic

Let’s get it out of the way at the onset: Tarnation was made for a paltry $218.32 (U.S.) and edited on IMovie. There, done. Into the film let us away! Jonathan Caouette is nothing if not personal (of course he has a blog!). He’s the 32 year-old Texan (and present New Yorker) whose dysfunctional biography of a film is the hottest bit of outsider art to ever be committed to celluloid. The film is made of years of footage, answering machine messages and photos accrued over a life less ordinary. Caouette’s mum underwent shock therapy, he was abused, he accidentally did PCP at age 11 – it’s enough fodder for a lifetime of movies. And the lifetime of home movies (much of them made with a camera Caouette got as a kid) are distilled into 88 minutes of storytelling cinema that wowed Cannes, California and just about everything in between. Indiewire makes a big hoohah of the fact that Caouette shares initials with Mel Gibson’s favourite protagonist, but TOist finds that opener preposterous, ridiculous, and, um, stupid. Though such overbearing press is enough of a cross for any young filmmaker to bear. We hope it’s good.