Movie #55 Marwencol

What a great surprise.  I went last Thursday to a showing of a documentary called Marwencol at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.  The theater was about half filled with art lovers and film enthusiasts.  I brought a friend along who lives in that area.  There were more like two surprises.  The first being at how much I loved this movie (which I will explain in a few minutes).  The other being after the screening of the film, the curator of the museum announced that they would be Skyping in Jeff Malmberg (the director of the film) for a surprise Q&A session.  How cool is that!?!  This is a movie that I think will stand a good chance to be nominated for Best Documentary Feature and I got to talk to the director and ask him some questions.

Marwencol is the story of a man, Mark Hogancamp, who was assaulted and suffered serious brain trauma. As a method of therapy he began building a 1/16 scale WWII Belgium village in his back yard called "Marwencol". The town is complete with a tavern, a church and dolls that resemble people in his life. The man then creates these elaborate scenarios and meticulously stages the dolls in these scenes. He then photographs the sets.  He has taken hundreds of pictures of his dolls in Marwencol.  His photos attract the attention of some artists and he gets a showing in a New York museum.

There is a surprising plot twist in the film about 2/3 the way through. While this is an interesting development I didn't find it necessary nor do I think it added much of anything to the main character or the film as a whole.  The film was shot almost entirely digital and it shows.  I thought at first that the production value was going to be really low, but it either improved after the first five minutes or I got so wrapped up in the story that I stopped caring about the look of the film.

The doc is funny, touching, dramatic, and heartfelt. There were times where I was laughing aloud when he was talking about setting up Marwencol, then there were times where I was disturbed when it appeared  that Mark was having difficulty segregating the real, harsh world from his safe imaginary world.  Towards the end of the film Mark begins to subvert his live and his dolls life.  It turns into a Synecdoche, NY.  It truly took my breath away. 

Marwencol will easily make my Top 10 films of the year.  I give Marwencol a 4.5/5 stars.  Check out the Trailer Park to see for yourself.