The Imposter

[Ja'moke]

Anyone seen this new documentary from the team behind Man On Wire and Project Nim?

I saw it earlier today and it is utterly compelling from start to finish. The story is so mind boggingly unbelievable yet...it did actually happen. For those that don't know the story, here is the general gist without spoiling too much - A 13 year old boy named Nicholas, from Texas, went missing in 1994, three and half years later he is found alive in Spain, except it isn't Nicholas, it was 23 year old French man Frederic Bourdin. That's all I'll say because to say any more would rob you of the immense suspense of the film.

I've known about this story and about Frederic Bourdin for a while. I originally researched the above story for my Creative Writing Portfolio at Uni, because I was going to use it as a basis for something I was writing. I didn't end up using it for my work, but I've always been fascinated with the story and I've always wanted for someone to make a documentary about it (someone made a shitty scripted movie based on it called The Chameleon a couple of years ago - not worth seeing), and you couldn't ask for a better team to take on such a documentary than those behind the amazing Man On Wire.

So yeah, if you've seen it, what do you think? If you haven't seen it - go see it now!

[Mini]

I loved it, utterly gripping and downright bizarre. It was slightly over the top with its horror movie sensibilities but that's forgivable, because it's so mesmerising with all its twists and turns.

[SteveDave]

I saw it last night & genuinely thought it'd be a

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is he isn't he film from the trailer but I loved the fact that it's right out there from the beginning that he's not their son.

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[Ja'moke]

I loved it, utterly gripping and downright bizarre. It was slightly over the top with its horror movie sensibilities but that's forgivable, because it's so mesmerising with all its twists and turns.

It is slightly over-the-top, but I think that is on purpose, right? The fact that

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Bourdin is basically the narrator (he certainly has the most screen time, and big close-up shots), telling his version of the story, despite the fact that we know he is a pathological liar and con-man, brings in to question just how much of the story was real and what was exaggerated by Bourdin? I think it is so interesting that you, or at least I did, start to suspect the family and by the end of the film you are looking at them with shifty-eyes rather than at Bourdin.

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[Mini]

It is slightly over-the-top, but I think that is on purpose, right? The fact that

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Bourdin is basically the narrator (he certainly has the most screen time, and big close-up shots), telling his version of the story, despite the fact that we know he is a pathological liar and con-man, brings in to question just how much of the story was real and what was exaggerated by Bourdin? I think it is so interesting that you, or at least I did, start to suspect the family and by the end of the film you are looking at them with shifty-eyes rather than at Bourdin.

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Yeah I've never seen a film that so skilfully toys with your sympathies like that. You think you feel one way about one person and then it completely pulls the rug out from under your feet. Breathtaking stuff.

[Blinder Data]

I watched this while pretty stoned, but despite my heightened sensibilities I knew it was brill. It really showed you how much you can get away with by just withholding information (at my screening there was an audible gasp when the imposter revealed he was French - I think everyone, including me, had assumed he was Spanish).

I loved how the film played with your expectations too. When the PI pulls up outside the house and

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says he thinks the body's in the garden

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he comes across as a crusading justice-seeker. And then afterwards it's more likely he's a deluded obsessive.

The level of deception and how much the family and authorities swallowed is astounding.

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An international military-organised child sex camp?!

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As the film goes on I began to

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suspect the family more and more

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. But then as you say, Ja'moke, we're taking the word of a pathological liar.

One of the best films of the year, for me.

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

Saw it in a crowded cinema last week. Wouldn't recommend it unless you like distracting cinema buffoonery.

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The apparently 'small minded' American sister being scoffed at for her plain honesty at never leaving the country for one. I too did like the way it left the viewer with no moral highground to aim for, just more of an admire him or detest him kind of vibe. As if, to lie is his raison d'être, pity or no pity.

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Great documentary though, one for the couch.

[SteveDave]

The laughs when I saw it came from when the sister said

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she didn't know where Spain was in America

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& when it kept cutting back to the private investigator going on about

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the difference in ear shape

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&

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the Michael Jackson dancing at the end of course

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[Ja'moke]

The laughs when I saw it came from when the sister said

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she didn't know where Spain was in America

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& when it kept cutting back to the private investigator going on about

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the difference in ear shape

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&

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the Michael Jackson dancing at the end of course

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There wasn't that many people in the screening I was at. I went to see it at York Picturehouse, as not one of the four cinemas here in Hull are showing it. But there was a minor chuckle at "

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Spain? That's at the other side of the country."

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My brother and I shared a laugh when the

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fax was coming through at the end though, as we both immediately turned to each other and said "Keyser Soze".

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[garbed_attic]

That Jon Ronson has lurid concerns God bless him.

Anyway, it was scintillatingly suspenseful, or other slightly less generous superlatives. Felt that it made Bourdin seem a little too bad-assed... but, as my brother always chides me, being cool has nothing to do with whether you're good or not. Still, his made this argument most stridently when talking to my mum about a high school shooting, so his opinion on the matter should possibly be taken with a pinch of salt. Oh younger brother of mine, what won't you say?

[mjwilson]

One thing that puzzled me was

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how and why the private investigator gets into the story. He just seems to be there at the TV interview, on the lookout for ears, then hangs around. Was he ever hired to look into the case?

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Also I felt uneasy about

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the aspersions that are cast on the dead brother. I guess it's balanced out by the sister defending him, but you still get the investigator and the FBI lady making fairly strong claims without evidence.

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[Ja'moke]

One thing that puzzled me was

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how and why the private investigator gets into the story. He just seems to be there at the TV interview, on the lookout for ears, then hangs around. Was he ever hired to look into the case?

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A producer of Hard Copy, who wanted to interview Bourdin, hired Parker to investigate the Barclay case.

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There's a great article that was written back in 2008 in the New Yorker about Bourdin, and it goes in to more detail about the case: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/08/11/080811fa_fact_grann

[BlodwynPig]

Going to see this today - without any prior knowledge of the content. Excited!

[Harpo Speaks]

I thought this was very good. I felt it was particularly effective how

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throughout you're wondering how Bourdin was able to manipulate the family to such a degree, only to have that turned directly back on to the audience, particularly the way he sells the idea that the family killed Nicholas. That moment of realisation that you've been listening to the very definition of an unreliable narrator.

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It was interesting how that was used to shift your sympathies, only for Bourdin to explicitly state his selfishness at the very end.

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Wasn't as keen on

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the digging up the garden sequence

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, it felt quite superfluous and stagey. I can report that the

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Ear Obsession

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did get laughs in my screening.

Highly recommended.

[Ja'moke]

Wasn't as keen on

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the digging up the garden sequence

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, it felt quite superfluous and stagey. I can report that the

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Ear Obsession

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did get laughs in my screening.

I agree, that was the only part of the film that didn't sit quite well with me, it wasn't needed.

Bourdin himself is not too impressed with the film. He says he was manipulated (haha!), and made to look a bad person. To be fair, for the majority of the film I thought he came across the best, I definitely think his "edit" was better than the "edit" the family received. Sure he came across as nutty but with a strange sense of charisma that I guess is a trait of sociopathic con-artists.

Interview with him here where he talks about the film: http://www.vice.com/read/the-imposter-is-pissed-off-about-the-imposter?utm_source=vicetwitterus

Also, can anyone recommend any other good documentaries similar to this one? I watched the Errol Morris film Tabloid last night about Joyce McKinney, that was enjoyable. I do have some kind of weird allure to con-artist stories (that's why I'm such a big fan of Survivor), so anything along those lines would be great.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I saw this today and found it fascinating as well, especially the way the film makers manipulated the way you feel towards the individuals throughout the film. The one thing that I found frustrating was that after the

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discovery that Bourdin had a long history of identify theft he wasn't challenged on this, and asked why he had acted in such a way so many times (and as recent as 2005, according to that New Yorker piece). We might not have been given a straight answer, but I would have been interested in his response. I'd have liked to have known more about his own childhood as well, it was briefly mentioned and sounded awful, but I would have liked to know what really happened, and if it was true or not.

Oh, and the audience laughed at quite a few inappropriate moments towards the end, including parts where the family were defending themselves against the allegations made (the Sisters "fuck him" speech, for example) which I found odd and a little bizarre.

Out of interest, what do people think when it comes to the family's guilt? It's so difficult to even begin to guess, I know, but I had a feeling the Mother and deceased brother might have been involved, whilst the sister was innocent. But if I was part of a jury, my feelings would be very mixed and with the evidence supplied there's no way I could find them guilty.

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Edit: That New Yorker article's fascinating, and gives a lot more background info than the film did. I feel a tiny bit cheated in a way, especially over all of the stuff concerning

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his appearance on French tv, and being given a job there, it certainly makes him seem less of a victim, albeit one who I'm still sympathetic to due to his childhood. I didn't know that he didn't live with the Mother, either, until right before his capture, and it's interesting that article portrays her in a more negative light than the film did.

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[Ja'moke]

The New Yorker article is fantastic, that's what got me so interested in this story in the first place back when I read it a couple of years ago. The film could have done with more discussion of Bourdin's childhood actually.

As far as the family,

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I do think something happened with the older brother and Nicholas, and I think the Mother may suspect so but wasn't present so therefore does not know for sure.

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[Junglist]

I watched this last night. I really couldn't buy into the hype. Sure, it's an outlandish story cemented by being true, but the twists and turns didn't astound me. The only time I was shocked was when he mentioned

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that the family may have killed the brother.

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Solid documentary, sure, but the hype around it? Nope.

[SteveDave]

I watched this last night. I really couldn't buy into the hype. Sure, it's an outlandish story cemented by being true, but the twists and turns didn't astound me. The only time I was shocked was when he mentioned

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that the family may have killed the brother.

[close]

Solid documentary, sure, but the hype around it? Nope.

But what about his ears?

[lazyhour]

Watched this last night and loved it.

A storytelling highlight for me was that

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about three quarters of the way through, Bourdin says that he only met Jason once, and he looked at him as if he knew he wasn't Nicholas and just said 'good luck'. Having this in the back of your mind makes you immediately mistrust Jason when the murder accusations start flying a little later, but of course you're just taking Bourdin's word for the whole thing.

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[Rolf Lundgren]

It is slightly over-the-top, but I think that is on purpose, right? The fact that

Spoiler alert

Bourdin is basically the narrator (he certainly has the most screen time, and big close-up shots), telling his version of the story, despite the fact that we know he is a pathological liar and con-man, brings in to question just how much of the story was real and what was exaggerated by Bourdin? I think it is so interesting that you, or at least I did, start to suspect the family and by the end of the film you are looking at them with shifty-eyes rather than at Bourdin.

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I thought it swung even more than that in terms of

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where your sympathies lie. At first it was with the family for being took in by a conman, then with Bourdin because it sounded like he just wanted a family, then with the family again as you thought Bourdin had manage to convince them he was their son, then with Bourdin as he makes the accusation about the family and then for me, back with the family (or mainly the sister) over the whole sorry episode.

There seemed to be enough doubt on the part of the PI and FBI to suggest the family were involved but for a while after watching it I kept trying to think why would they accept Bourdin as their son if they did really kill him? Obviously there's another secret there that the film didn't get to the bottom of and it's probably even stranger than we realise (but I'm not betting on it being a military organised sex slave ring).

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Such a brilliant story though and well told in the film.