Exit Through the Gift Shop: The Summary

Exit Through The Gift Shop is a documentary film directed by the famous, yet anonymous, street artist only known as Banksy. The film focuses around the efforts of Thierry Guetta and his attempt to create a documentary about the Street Art movement [aka Graffiti, as its known to most persons] The film later turns the cameras on him as he moves on to create a career in the world of street art in an attempt to please his peers. It is exposed later on in the film that both attempts go on different paths than which was originally intended yet at the same time turn out to be a success [in a sort of ironic way as we shall soon see].

Thierry Guetta [MBW]

The story starts off with the introduction of Thierry Guetta, an L.A. based clothes retailer who migrated there from France. Guetta lived a successful and steady life making huge profits from overpriced goods in addition, he is shown to be a family man living with his wife and 3 children. In what seems so far to be a normal man living the "American Dream" turns out to be a man with a chronic addiction to document his entire life on film. Later on in the film it is discovered that this addiction to documentation originated from the events surrounding the loss of his mother at a young age, because he missed this critical period of his life, he felt that all of his memories should be able to be recorded and watched at a later date [he later on revealed that although he has kept all of his tapes in storage, he has not yet watched a single tape].

After his addiction is accepted by his family and close companions, a family trip to France puts his video taping addiction to use, primarily from being in the right place at the right time. He discovers that his cousin, 'Invader' is a member of the ever expanding street art movement taking place around the world. 'Invader' introduces his cousin to other artists such as Monsieur Andre, Samo and Zeus. Guetta's introduction to the movement lead to him becoming an unofficial, offical videographer to the graffiti artists. After heading back to L.A. with Invader he met with one of America's most famous street artist, Shepard Fairey.

Shepard Fairey [as most ppl know him]

His journey with Fairey brought Guetta into the global arena of Street Art. Guetta tagged alongside Fairey as an assistant to him for years meeting other artists along the way such as Buffmonster, Neckface, Swoon, Borf, Sweet Toof & Cyclops. This journey assisting other artists exposed the darker side of street art such as run ins with the police and injuries from scaling walls. The experience overall pushed Guetta to continue filming the artists until he felt he filmed all the major artists, except Banksy.

Guetta felt as if Banksy would be the final piece in his collection of film and was persistent to get him on film. As fate would have it, he finally encountered Banksy by chance and eventually tagged alongside him wherever he went. After showing the inner workings of Banksy, Guetta was encouraged to finally stop filming and compile his documentary [which of course Guetta was not prepared for] on what Street Art really was. From seeing a preliminary showing of the 'documentary', Banksy realized that Guetta had no experience in making a documentary. As a result, Banksy took over Guetta's collection of tapes while Banksy told him to stop videoing. With so much excess free time, Guetta started his own graffiti campaign until it exploded into a large scale art exhibition under which he undertook the name of Mr. Brainwash [MBW]. The story ends with MBW hosting his own art exhibition which transforms him into a successful name in the art industry.

To conclude: Invader, Fairey and Banksy all feel responsible for creating MBW all of whom had mixed feelings about his rapid progress as an artist. A full conclusion will be posted tmrw when I'm awake but for those who can't see the vid, hopefully this summary will give some insight and a clearer view into the concept of the film.

Banksy, as shown in the film

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