There’s a lot of hype around at the moment surrounding new Hollywood blockbuster The Social Network and whilst it may be popular, the real Facebook film you should be looking out for is Catfish.
The film which has caused a stir at America’s Sundance Film Festival and The BFI London Film Festival this year was created by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost in 2007, when they decided to document Nev Schulman’s online experience as he gradually became friends with a family in Michigan via Facebook. Throughout the documentary it is revealed that Nev is starting to have reciprocated feelings for a member of the family, Megan; they talk on the phone, online and send each other texts, but it’s not long until strange discoveries about the family arise. What follows is a series of strange events as Nev eventually meets the family and the saying “people aren’t what they seem” springs to mind.
The three central protagonists Ariel, Henry and Nev are all very likeable, funny and soon into the film the audience begin to sympathise towards Nev and his quest for the truth. The film is enjoyable, and does well in creating suspense throughout as the viewer and filmmakers start to learn more about “the facebook family”, although the twist revelation near to the end of the film isn’t quite as shocking as the trailer makes out, but it is still is an interesting one.
Catfish is shot using a camcorder to begin with, which can be quite disorientating and distracting but towards the end of the film the quality improves. There has been much deliberation as to whether this is really a documentary as has been claimed. It could be argued it is fictional because the content could appear to be unbelievable, and also because there seems to be a large amount of brand names used in the film such as iphone, Blackberry, Google Maps, Apple Mac and Supermarche – which might suggest these companies helped fund the film.
Whether or not it really is a documentary Catfish is still highly entertaining, and teaches a good lesson to be more internet aware, and to not take people at face value.
The film is set for release in the UK on 17th December
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