MovieChat Forums > The Imposter (2012) Discussion > Well I felt more manipulated watching th...

Well I felt more manipulated watching the documentary ..

posted 12 years ago by erfanall
2 replies | jump to latest

Well I felt more manipulated watching the documentary than observing Bourdin.
The director deals with the issue of deceiving and how could Bourdin deceived so many people or how could they be brainwashed by him, not only it doesn't gets you to any point or any links to understand the characters but he intentionally deceive the viewers with the way that the whole documentary has been set up.

The way he edited, reconstructed characters, atmosphere,the music. It completely dehumanized the main character rather than getting closer to the issue, intentions of deceiving or causes of being deceived or the other events. It was more like watching crime watch or cheap entertainment shows that these days get away with calling their show as documentaries on MTV or so on..

Documentary is suppose to absorb the truth and not deconstruct facts and transform them to create sense of mystery and what point was it getting across to not trust each other, I don't get it..why is it that these kind of films get rated as a documentary I felt the director every part of the film.In Documentary you have to let the truth speaks.

[–] a-irwin01 12 years ago

I agree. It was really manipulative, though I really enjoyed it and was still totally hooked throughout.

The set-up of the documentary only adds more confusion to the story and manipulates how the story unfolded.

One example: When the FBI sees his INTERPOL records, the movie lists dozens of false identities Bourdin had. In fact, he didn't pretend to be many of those children until after the events in Texas (according to wikipedia, anyway).

I think all documentaries are heavily influenced by the director and the presentation. It's not really possible to present the "true" version of events especially when dramatizations are involved.

I think this was a really engaging movie, but the perplexing ending is that much more frustrating because it's hard to determine what's really still unknown and what was just manipulation on the part of the filmmakers.

[–] Purple_Grant 10 years ago

I felt like that in the initial moments after watching it, then realised it was perhaps very clever.

The film is about how people are taken in by this manipulative liar. How he uses your desired narrative for his own ends.
What better way to illustrate that than letting the viewers be taken in by him?
They tell us right from the start that he's a liar, but when we perceive a twist coming that makes an exciting narrative we fall for it. He almost starts to seem like he might be the hero of this story in some twisted way.
The documentary letting us do that to ourselves in it's last act then pulling the rug from under us is perhaps the best expose of who he is and what he does they could present.