Much has
been written already about how brilliant a documentary “The Imposter” is, so
going into this I was expecting some big things from it, however right from the
start this film just rubbed me the wrong way.
The true
story of “The Imposter” is an amazing one.
Back in 1993, Nicholas Barclay, disappeared from his home without a
trace. After intensive searching for the
thirteen year old failed to provide any evidence to the boy’s whereabouts, the
family started to realize that if he was ever to be found, he would most likely
be deceased. Three years later,
Nicholas’s mother receives a phone call from Spain of all places, explaining to
the woman that her son has been found there.
He is dazed and appears traumatized but he is very much alive. Nicholas’s sister immediately boards the next
plane to Spain to bring her brother home.
The family is ecstatic by Nicholas’s return, something they never
thought would happen, but it isn’t long before they notice that something isn’t
right. They understand that the boy has
been through a lot, but he has changed so much is it really Nicholas. Obviously from the title of the film it turns
out that the family has brought into their house an imposter, a French
immigrant who among many differences from Nicholas, has a completely different
eye colour than the boy. The imposter,
whose real name is Frederic Bourdin, starts to wonder why a family would
readily accept an obvious stranger in their home in the guise of their deceased
son unless they have something to hide.
It is then that he starts to believe that the family themselves or at
least members of it, had something to do with Nicholas’s disappearance.
From the
above you can see that the actual story is a very intriguing if unbelievable
one. This is a “truth is stranger than
fiction” film but the problem with the documentary is the way that the story is
presented. Director Bart Layton puts the
film together in such a way that you are actually not sure whether or not this
is real. It actually has the feeling of
a mockumentary and the use of dramatized re-enactments do not help. It was like Layton wanted to make a film
based on the real events instead of documenting what actually happened. The entire film has a feeling of façade and
even contempt for its audience as I am sure the whole point of the presentation
is to make us question what is real or not.
With the title of the film being “The Imposter” I was so sure it was
ironically titled and that what I was watching was a fabricated story
pretending to be true. The feeling of
smugness and being too clever for its own good is what I took away from the
film, but when I got home and realized that the story was actually true, it
made me angry that Bart Layton decided to trivialize the disappearance of a
little boy for entertainment purposes.
Layton
had access to a number of interviewee subjects from Nicholas’s sister and
mother, a private investigator, an FBI agent on the case and Frederic Bourdin
himself. The way the interview sections
have been put together and edited it is almost as if Layton was mocking the
Barclay family because they come across as idiots. Even worse was the FBI agent involved and her
inept abilities to do her job was the main reason I thought this film wasn’t
real. The other odd decision Layton
makes is the fact that he almost makes Bourdin the “hero” of the film as he is
treated with much more respect than any of the family members. It is like he is impressed by the fact that
he was able to get away with such a strange crime. As you would expect him to be, Bourdin is a
charismatic guy, but Layton goes too far by almost idolizing this sick man who
fed off the despair of a family and who ultimately accused them of murdering
their child themselves. The problem with this is Bourdin is a known serial liar
so how can we take what he says as fact. I would go so far as to say that
Layton has exploited the disappearance of this boy and the pain of his family,
in an attempt to make his film more “entertaining”.
The
sheer absurdity of the true facts would have made this documentary compelling
enough if told in the traditional manner, but the contempt for both the subject
of the film and the audience shown here is disgusting and I feel sorry for the
family members who committed to this project in good faith only to end up being
ridiculed and mocked. Isn’t the loss of
their child painful enough without it being trivialized by an uncaring
filmmaker. My score for the film is due
to the true facts involved not for the documentary which made me very angry.
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