The Imposter
2012 Directed by Bart Layton
Synopsis
There are two sides to every lie.
It’s 1994: a 13-year-old boy disappears from his home in San Antonio, Texas. Three and a half years later, he is found alive, thousands of miles away, in Spain. Disoriented and quivering with fear, he divulges his shocking story of kidnap and torture. His family is overjoyed to bring him home. But all is not what it seems. Sure, he has the same tattoos, but he looks decidedly different, and he now speaks with a strange accent. Why doesn't the family seem to notice these glaring inconsistencies? It's only when an investigator starts asking questions that this astounding true story takes an even stranger turn.
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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Part of Dastardly Difficult December: film nr.96
What a piece of work is man!
Our species never ceases to amaze me. The fact that this increasingly bizarre story is real is something that still makes me dizzy from all the implications it bears with it.
This documentary is a masterful feat of storytelling and characterization without bias. It mixes the real with dramatization beautifully, thus slowly laying bare a story that is unbelievable, infuriating and captivating. It has the guts to place the titular imposter center stage, relying on the strength of his story. He is a bizarre character and the more I got to know about him, the more I felt myself being drawn into his story, wondering whether…
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Jaw-dropping in several respects, Bart Layton's documentary is as technically skilled as it audacious and unbelievable.
In 1994, 13 year-old Nicholas Barclay went missing from his home in San Antonio, Texas. In 1997 a young man claiming to be him appears in a town in Spain. His family welcome him back into the fold despite his complete lack of resemblance to the missing boy.
We know right from the beginning that the boy is not Nicholas. He is Frédéric Bourdin, a drifter and opportunist that decided to take a chance to forge a new identity. He is the main interviewee of the film, and Layton constructs his and the Barclays' story through a mixture of talking heads and reconstructions. So…
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Having already seen the disappointing fictional film, The Chameleon, which also dealt with the same story I think it may have slightly impacted my enjoyment of this documentary as I was familiar with the many twists in this remarkable and often unbelievable story. However, that doesn’t change the fact that this documentary from debut feature director, Bart Layton, is an incredibly accomplished film that brilliantly weaves a story that raises far more troubling questions than answers.
It is best to go in knowing as little as possible about the events of the film which means I will avoid talking about specifics in my review and try and be as general as possible. However, if you still haven’t seen it just…
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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I don't wanna say much about this documentary because it's best you go in blind, but fuck me what a messed up story this is! It's one of the more intriguing documentaries I've seen in awhile and well worth seeing.
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Intriguing documentary which focuses on the disappearance in 1994 of a 13 year old Texan boy and his subsequent impersonation three years later by a Frenchman seven years his senior.
The family are - apparently - taken in and through interviews with the imposter, the boy's family, a local investigator and several others the viewer is presented different versions of the story.
The home footage of the imposter's 'homecoming' in the US is deliciously weaved into the sequence of interviews, which only added to my incredulousness.
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Fantastic cinematography and editing compliment this bizarre, stranger-than-fiction documentary.
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Riveting and infuriating tale of a stolen identity.
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The Imposter is a masterfully constructed documentary that plays out better than most scripted thrillers, successfully clouding its conclusion with a succession of extraordinary twists and turns. The director is entirely impartial and gives voice to a series of none-too-bright people wilfully overlooking the obvious to appease a family’s emotional pain. To say more would be to reveal too much – this is certainly one to approach cold.
However, mention must go to the titular imposter, Frédéric Bourdin, and the arrogant disassociation with which he talks about his deception. This can be galling, but Bourdin is undoubtedly a talented – albeit ill – individual who must be admired for his ability to successfully mould himself into what others want to see.
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"... You'll find yourself willingly drawn into [Bourdin's] version of events through his swaggering patter, despite the fact that the film regularly reminds you either overtly or subtly that the man you are watching and listening to is a habitual liar and swindler. All moralistic questions aside, director Bart Layton has struck on a consistently compelling screen presence in Bourdin." Full review here
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Expertly crafted documentary. Dark and ominous from the outset. The interviews tell the story perfectly. I had read a New Yorker article on the subject, so the material was not unfamiliar to me, but I still found this telling totally compelling. This film should have received more attention last year; it deserves an audience.
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A very slick documentary in the Errol Morris style, once again proving reality's capability to outweird fiction. The material is so rich, and the characters are all so eccentric I was left with the feeling the film is just scraping the surface of this case. But as a thriller it works just fine.
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We can easily appreciate the risky topic and tone that this documentary? develops, but once the 'big surprise' is brought up, the plot is really redundant and pushy.
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A staggering, unbelievable documentary.