Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Did you people see the same film I saw?

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Suffering from brain damage and permanent memory loss , Mark Hogancamp spent nine days in a coma after a severe beating which almost killed him. When he awoke Mark went through therapy to try and regain all the skills that he lost. After leaving the hospital Mark began his own therapy in the form of Marwencol, a 1/6th scale World War II era town he built and is inhabited by dolls. Using some of the dolls as representations for people he knows, Mark creates numerous stories within Marwencol, some of which relate to the time he was assaulted.When his photographs are seen by magazine publisher an art show is set up in Greenwich village, New York. Conflicted by whether or not to go ahead with the show Mark must decide if he wants to keep his therapy to himself or share it with the outside world, which he doesn't have much interaction with and doesn't feel safe in.An interesting documentary, this film gives a view into the world of a man who has created a unique way to deal with the trauma of having nothing from a life he had prior to an assault outside a bar. The viewer gets to see the before and after sides to Mark's personality, some which seem a little creepy and others which show him as a simple man trying to get his life back. More importantly it shows how Mark didn't just become a victim who gave up because of what happened to him. Although the film tends to lag a little near the end and leaves a few questions unanswered this is worth viewing.

This is a very unusual documentary about a very unusual guy -- Mark Hogencamp, a sort of "artist by accident". 10 years ago, Mark was beaten almost to death by thugs in a local bar.Before the accident, he was a severe alcoholic, living a very marginal existence anyhow (in some important ways, MORE marginal than his life after brain damage) and left confusing diaries about his anger, drinking and violence. He was also a pretty accomplished amateur artist, whose drawings focused on images of violence, WWII, busty women, etc.It is fascinating how this "lost self" rematerializes in the post-injury Mark, who is so terribly damaged and has few memories of his former self (so much so he can't remember the woman he was once married to), by coming out in an odd hobby; Mark designs and builds little sets on which he displays various GI Joe-type dolls and Barbies in WWII scenarios, based less on history than odd re-tellings of his life and his attack (in his fantasies, his attackers are "Nazi SS").Bits of what memories and recollections he has, his romantic fantasies, his old drawing skills, his fears and anger about being attacked, themes of romantic love and violence, fascination with WWII (long time before, I think, even his parents day) all weave together in a narrative that has come to represent this lonely man's whole existence. That he documents his tableaux in snapshots, and that these were blown up and exhibited in a gallery show, are the underpinnings of this documentary.I approached this as not just a viewer or fellow artist, but as a fellow adult doll and toy collector. Mark is FAR from the only adult to collect expensive dolls and reproductions and to display them elaborately; unfortunately, I think the filmmakers and their New York art gallery sensibility simply do not understand this, and assume it is a unique form of "insider art". (It isn't; for every Mark, there are a thousand "Lisa's" displaying expensive dolls in elaborate settings with elaborate story lines. However, the likelihood is these female collectors do not have a dramatic back story about mental illness, brain damage, violent attacks or lifelong disability).Marwencol itself is fascinating, though the filmmakers dodge in and out of it, so that we can't quite get a handle on the scale of it. To my seasoned eyes, it appears to be about the size of small patio -- the whole thing is outdoors, surprisingly in a winter climate -- and built crudely out of plywood. The power of the tableau derives almost entirely from the sophistication of the dolls, and they are NOT dolls Mark has created, but purchased "ball jointed" dolls (for the most part; he has some female Barbie's of the ordinary toy store variety) that are like WWII versions of GI Joe; very pose-able and with hyper-masculine faces. These types of dolls DO look astonishing real, with many points of articulation, but the filmmakers seem obtuse to the fact that MANY people buy these and pose them, though perhaps not to Mr. Hogencamp's obsessive degree. They would not EXIST on the market if there was not a significant demand (and for these WWII homage-type dolls, their audience is 95% male).It would have considerably more power here if Mark was a savant, who CREATED these dolls, out of wax or wood and paint...if he sewed the tiny, astonishing detailed clothes or carved the tiny amazing (working!) guns. BUT HE DOESN'T. He just BUYS them.And frankly, here is where I had a disconnect with the message of the film: if he's just buying stuff, and setting it up, he's not that unusual. This is what such dolls are DESIGNED FOR; a sophisticated (and expensive) kind of adult play. (They are not produced for children; not at all.) That means Mark isn't so unusual and his attraction to this kind of play is not a sign of his brain damage or mental illness.Secondly: because they failed to look into where he gets the dolls (or why there is a market for such dolls), they never ask "what does such a doll cost? and how does a very poor, mentally ill brain damaged man on SSDI afford them?" Because one thing such WWI reproductions are is very costly: I'd say roughly $50-100 per doll. And Hogencamp owns HUNDREDS of dolls, thousands of accessories, jeeps, etc.Mark lives in a sad little trailer by the side of a busy road, yet he's spending $1000s in taxpayer support on collectible dolls? I don't begrudge him a hobby or a few dolls, but this isn't "a few dolls". This is tens of thousands of dollars of dolls, accessories and photography.I also wondered a bit about the fact that the entire Marwencol is constructed OUTDOORS, in upstate New York -- a harsh winter climate. It's pretty fragile, and it won't take much to turn it into rubble. Not to mention such pricey dolls and accessories were not designed to sit out of doors in all kinds of weather (even exposure to sunlight will wreck them in short time). What then? Mark is so vested in identity with the dolls (most of whom are designed or chosen to resemble specific people in his life, including himself), I wonder how he'll cope with that inevitable destruction.A very interesting documentary, that could have dug deeper and asked more questions, but which has an strange kind of power. Enough so that I will probably view it again.

I saw this with a science documentary that bothered me because instead of giving us the worthwhile narrative of the actual events, it invented a narrative of 'discovery' that was bogus and which occluded the cool stuff.This film settled me because it is an intelligent examination of a related but larger issue. What do we care about the nature of an artist? How much does it matter? Does it matter that Vincent was an intriguing soul whose dark letters we have next to his brilliant sunflowers? Surely a life can be artfully lived; but what does it mean for it to be exposed as art?You take your pick and create your own balance, and this film forces you into a disturbing dilemma. The 'outer' story is the one we are seemingly supposed to engage with: a sick but likable man has interesting obsessions that in presentations outside the film are seen as art. This fits the template of documentaries about Robert Crumb, Henry Darger, Bruce Bickford and the dozens of fictionalized films about artists. We love knowing about them, in the delusion that knowing the artist somehow gives access to the magic of their art. In my experience, an artist is often the last person who can do this. He/she even becomes a barrier. (This excludes a class of personal exhibition that uses the body.)Let's just say that what matters here is that the artist is in a situation where his art matters to him, he is a master at framing a scene to richly confer narrative. And he does so with ordinary cameras and dolls.The 'inner' story here is one of tortured lives and simple romances as clarified through simple abstractions of pose. It is all about poses. The artifice that these are dolls in some demented guy's backyard fades away. We don't see much of the artists work, because the filmmaker wants us to see his own. But when we do, it transports. I suspect that if we knew much less, they would matter more. But that balance, that balance is what we strike in our own tortured art of observation.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

please note: I don't think there are really any spoilers below - my comments are kept sufficiently vague so as to preclude giving anything away!-------...that this man's story ain't over yet and the film's rather downbeat conclusion, was, I felt, a bit premature, at best. Perhaps I'm overly optimistic (this is not something I'm ever accused of though, lemme point out) but I think better times outside of his backyard "town" await Mark Hogancamp in the big wide world.And even if his life continues along the same lines . . . I have a problem with the film's ending on a more general level - even if the last line spoken comes straight from the horse's mouth - on account of the 'tragic' overtones resulting from its placement at the very end of the movie.Typically in the case of portrayals of such "outsiders" as MH, there is, I suspect/feel, misplaced pity directed at such folks whose unconventional lives and choices might seem to the average person restrictive or even out and out depressing and pathetic. It seems to me, contrarily, that what a "special" person of this sort is up to in his private/fantasy dimension ought not so automatically to be "compared" to various facets of the lives of more ordinary people, finding it lacking. Rather, the art/therapy practice of a person like Mark Hogancamp should be envied as something extra, and extra special, in fact, which option, sadly, is denied most of your so-called average persons, consigned to what Thoreau famously referred to as "quiet desperation"! I, at any rate, do not feel so sorry for Mark Hogencamp, in spite of some of the rough circumstances that form the basis of his existence.He certainly isn't devoid of charm. :)