It is rare to find a documentary film that can capture attention and hold it for 1.5 hours as well as an art film. After all, creating a documentary, you do not have the right to liberties, which can then lead to accusations of lying. However, the authors of this film were incredibly lucky. They came across a story so incredible, so fantastic that it sounds like a script for an adventurous Hollywood thriller. But it's a reality. And that makes me feel uncomfortable.
In short, a 13-year-old boy went missing in Texas. Where he went is still a mystery. The story might have ended there, but here on the other side of the globe, in Spain, 23-year-old Frederick Bourdain claims that he is the missing boy. And although they have almost no common features, and the fraudster himself later stated that the similarities between him and Nicholas (the boy's name) consisted only of, perhaps, five fingers on each hand and leg, the relatives still accepted him, and the judges did not have any questions for three months. Only on the initiative of a private detective-enthusiast, the impostor was able to calculate with a long delay.
That sounds absurdly unrealistic, right? Like another Catch Me If You Can movie or The Talented Mr. Ripley. But Bourdain is ready to give a head start to any DiCaprio and Damon in acting. So masterfully deceiving everyone, including the Nicholas family, is just some natural talent for resourcefulness.
And most importantly, the story is real, not embellished. Perhaps different points of view make events a little more ambiguous, but the essence of what is happening does not change. It’s even scary to take a person and steal their identity. Now this is much less possible thanks to technologies that have definitely stepped forward (although readers of Glukhovsky’s novels and his hit Text will even argue with this), but then it was a reality.
The film is suitable both as a cool documentary and as an artistic reconstruction. From the first, we have a detailed decomposition of everything that happened, and from the mouths of those who witnessed and/or participated in the events. From the second - a famously twisted plot with excellent artistic inserts, where these same participants are played by actors. In fact, if the creators really wanted it, this film could easily turn from a documentary to an artistic one based on real events. There is no need to change anything, the story is very cinematic.
Well, like the cherry on the cake - after the end there is something to think about. What really happened to Nicholas, whether the family was so beloved towards the boy, whether the already multi-layered story could have even more facets. Again, all these questions are asked by the documentary. A powerful achievement, isn’t it?
The imposter is a merciless slap on all those who believe in happy Hollywood finals. It's not like that in real life. We have a hard beginning, a mysterious middle and an obscure end, which is not a point, a tripod is hard to call. But the story in the film is of such high value. It allows you to descend from the heavens to the Earth, to delve more carefully into what is happening and understand that such a person always has a double or even triple bottom. You don’t always have to trust what you see on the surface.
It may sound boring to some because it's a documentary, there are many on YouTube, but the story it tells is horrifying, it's full of people with mental illnesses, and at first you wonder why the family of the missing teenager adopted this impostor as their own son. Further, the authors tell the whole background of this case, Frederic Bourdain himself is also mentally ill, he many times introduced himself as a teenager, and even after this incident, while he gave birth to five children and was left with them alone, his wife escaped, can anything normal be born to him at all? That's the question, but about the ending? She's just like she was. . . P.S. There's a film that's somewhat similar on the subject, but it's artistic, called "The Substitute" of 2008, starring Angelina Jolie, but there director Clint Eastwood twisted the real plot, softening it, but the film is worth it. . .
“I’m only interested in me, the main thing is me.”
I was very impressed by Bart Layton’s documentary thriller The Impostor (2012), based on a 1997 scandal: a twenty-three-year-old Frenchman, Frederick Bourdain, tricked the authorities and a Texas family into believing he was their missing teenage son. It doesn’t sound so ridiculous until you learn the details of the missing boy’s appearance: blonde hair, blue eyes, which is the exact opposite of the perpetrator.
The author deliberately chose the genre of documentary film in order to preserve the authenticity of the story as much as possible, while not losing interest in the feature film in the plot, as well as visually. The story of the replacement of a thirteen-year-old boy Nicholas Barkley worked out on conscience. The film contains interviews with the main characters, used footage from the home archive of the Brackley family, perfectly performed scenes by the actors. “Truth is sometimes crazier than fiction.”
The main character appears before us now as a victim, then a mad villain, depending on who tells about the events. The director leaves the viewer the opportunity to choose one side on their own. I will not talk about the life path of Frederick Bourdain, as it is worthy of your personal attention, but the characteristic fact is that a person was in the eternal search for a new identity. "He manipulates the truth."
While watching the film, the question of Frederick's mysterious life flows into the family secret of the Brackley family, as the director himself said: "Every lie has two truths." Despite the answer received a little further than the middle, the intrigue is preserved to the end. If you are wondering how this story ended, I recommend the film to watch.
A fact not related to the film, but more to the director. Bart Layton has not released a single project since the release of this film. But it is known that he not only made films, but also taught difficult students in prison in Latin America, in exchange for their stories. I would like to see another decent documentary work of the director.
The son-lost (13l.) returned home after 4 g
“Impostor” (2012), UK, dir. Bart Layton. Genre: documentary, biography.
Tagline: “Every lie has two truths.”
Frédéric Bourdain (born 13 June 1974 in Nanterre) is a French serial impostor, nicknamed "Chameleon" by the press. In this film, Frederick Bourdain plays himself.
It was a good movie. If the family had killed the real Nicholas, the HF would have been better. When did you start using DNA in the world? The early 1980s. How come we didn’t do that initially? Drunk in a puddle. The woman asks: Whose husband? Nobody? Then it'll be mine. It turns out you grab it, and then we'll figure it out. They got hemorrhoids on their head. And why? Emotions first, and then brains, and not vice versa, are always the best option. The detective is a very clever one, he revealed all the lies. Nicholas, 23, wanted to get out of Spain and he succeeded. “I no longer pretended to be another person. I stole the identity (his voice-over). Is Nicholas a victim or a good actor?
You will see all the mistakes in the process.
But about this scoundrel and impostor Frederick Bourdain already in x. f. "Chameleon" (2010), 1 p.46 m., Canada, Fr., USA, dir. Jean-Paul Salome. Frederick Bourdain (renamed Frederick Forten in the film) acted as a consultant to the film.
The story told in this film is amazing. It seems that this is the invention of another brilliant screenwriter, because this can only happen in the movies! However, no, everything that is told in an hour and a half of “Impostor” is true.
I think before you read the reviews, you ran your eyes and description, putting together a preliminary picture of what you will face. So, Nicholas Barkley, who disappeared in Texas, after more than three years, appeared on a completely different continent - in Spain. The story of his disappearance, as well as the finds, is full of dark secrets, but even more eerie is the fact that this young man hides, appearing out of nowhere.
The film is biographical and half documentary, half fiction. Between interviews with the participants of those events - members of the family of the missing boy and Frederick Bourdain - a French fraudster nicknamed "Chameleon", the viewer sees staged scenes recreating some episodes from the Barkley case. The project participants share their memories, because it was now far away in 1997, reliving everything that once happened to them.
It is hard to imagine, but the story of Barkley-Bourden became possible due to the wildest coincidence of circumstances and the coincidence of many factors. A letter with a color picture of Nicholas found by Frederick, a meeting with an older sister who showed family photos and further successful inquest at the commission, the presence of a girl who knows how to do tattoos in the orphanage, the decision of the police to give the impostor an office for the whole night - in short, so that the lie succeeded, many events occurred that led to the fact that three years and four months later, the Barkley family was again able to hug their missing son and brother.
“Impostor” with frightening determination demonstrates the shocking truth that it is possible. After all, it’s not even about cheating on grief-stricken relatives or cheating on a police patrol. Everything is much more complicated, because in this case not the last role was played by FBI agents and members of the US Consulate in Spain. Imagine how the young arrogant managed to beat the feds and achieve the desired result! It is clear that today you can do a DNA test in a couple of hours and dot all the i, but in 1997 the technology was not so advanced that allowed the lie to drag on.
The film raises a lot of questions and one of the key questions is: what happened to Nicholas Barkley? The second half of the film will allow the viewer to get one of the versions. One more question: how could Nicholas’s relatives recognize their son and brother in a completely different and not looking at his years? Why did Nicholas’ first meeting with his family take place in such an emotionally restrained manner? This is especially true of the mother, because the son was not home for more than three years. During this time, she probably buried him more than a dozen times and replayed the most terrifying scenarios of what could happen to him. After all, almost 3.5 years is enough time to rush to his neck without hesitation and hotly press to his mother’s heart. But it's not. Perhaps the version that sounds in the second half of the film has the ground under his feet.
“Impostor”, despite the semi-documentary nature, is quite a spectacular and exciting film that keeps in suspense until the very end, no worse than any psychological thriller.
But look at you. I do not impose my opinion on anyone.
From place to place, for directing, for Bart Layton’s excellent work, I give this film 10 points. Some may think that the merit of the director is too exaggerated, they say the film is based on real events - there is no need to invent anything, the script is almost ready; as actors - real people - no trials and failures with an incorrectly selected type; in general, how not to look, but it seems that Layton all these factors greatly facilitated the work, well, where...
Any person, even those who have no idea how the light is built in the studio and the script is written, can easily distinguish a documentary from an artistic one, so the task of the director is precisely to ensure that these “slices” do not cut their eyes, so that the viewer does not feel that the film is in two completely different planes. Layton coped with this task just fine - the film turned out to be whole and organic, at one point it even seemed that there were no real people in the film - all the actors, just amazing actors - so subtle were the transitions between the frames with eyewitness stories and how the director saw this story.
As for the plot itself - this story is one in a million and is worth watching the film for the sake of it - in a good brazen, absurd and stunning idea of Frederick Bourdain delights and frightens at the same time - was it really? People can do that? Damn it, every time I die of heart I go through the anti-theft gates of shops, and here the person was not afraid to impersonate another person - a heap of lies and everyone is fooled - FBI agents, police officers and even the mother of the one whose son this daring imposter pretended to be! The best scripts are still written by Life.
The genre of the film is defined as a documentary, I think it is not quite so, the film is more like an art detective. The story is built consistently, but not without intrigue, in the film there are many interesting turning points and artistic techniques that do not allow me to rank this film only as a documentary genre, Bart Layton worked too well with the material - he was able to feel all its facets, correctly place accents in the narrative and show the story from such sides, about which the viewer did not even suspect. What can you say, Bart, all 10 points are deservedly yours!
10 out of 10
The stupidest cops and FBI agents in one movie. A 13-year-old child in 4 years turns into an adult bristling man with dyed hair (+7 years difference), a different eye color. A tattoo done at night in the morning looks like a multi-year, simple blood type test and/or DNA test – why, and so it will work – hold a U.S. passport. "Let's leave an unknown person overnight in a police station unattended" is a great idea. Complete lack of character action outside the interview, only general plans outside the interview. Strange people recognize me in a picture from kindergarten, and in the film, the mother and the rest of the relatives of a colored brown man with crooked ears cannot distinguish from their son a blond blue-eyed man. A boring and boring story is what you will experience during a two-hour viewing.
1 out of 10
You need to be born an actor in order to so skillfully impersonate others.
The film struck me. Before watching a glimpse of the comments, caught the definition of the genre given by one of the viewers – “pseudo-documentary film”. I watched with complete confidence that the screenwriter is good, the plot is intriguing, the actors play so well. Especially hooked the main character, the appearance is unremarkable, but looks at the camera without words, and involuntarily you think - such a slippery type can be believed. What is surprising is that his personality does not repel, although actions cannot be called good.
Only after the film found out that all the events are real, and the same shots of the chronicle are real. After all the machinations of the main character, the film “Catch Me If You Can” is also based on real events. As has already been written in other reviews, other scammers and fraudsters had a clear, often material motive, for example, the thirst for profit, which guided Frederick Bourdain is difficult to understand. As he explained himself, he sought love and family warmth. And he did what he did best, pretending to be other people, often teenagers, up to the age of 31.
The film is a story in its own way of a talented person. It’s great that it was taken down because people like that deserve to be in history.
During the viewing, there will undoubtedly be an impression of the documentary film, which for the most part will be true. Only periodically slip flashbacks performed by actors. However, the film is more artistic, because, as neither the narrative and the ending and the whole presentation is reduced to a certain morality, meaning. There is also an understatement and unfinished intrigue, which is not typical of documentary films.
And if you sum up the results of a feature film, then directing at the level (after all, the balance is so skillfully kept - Documentary / Game), the music is not impressive, but immerses in the atmosphere (which is required for this kind of film), would say the word about the screenwriter, but it is difficult to understand whether there is a script here, or it is only the narrative of a real person (it is curious that the screenwriter does not appear on the film). One of the most unusual films of the last decade. That's why I must have liked him so much.
It is also noteworthy that “Impostor” is Daniel Redcliffe’s favorite film. The film is now in my modest collection.
It is impossible to call the film documentary, there are too many game episodes, but based on real events will be more than true. The picture is abundantly seasoned with monologues that comment on a particular event, and sometimes the characters simply share their emotions, which, of course, deprives the film of any energy, but easily immerses the viewer in what is happening.
Despite all the positive aspects of the picture, and they are undoubtedly significant, I was still a bit bored. The action practically did not develop in any way, although the situation at times was not jokingly heated, requiring a denouement, but the timing of this did not allow, so again everything sagged, drowned in the next soul-wrenching monologues.
Once again surprised the Americans, or rather their monstrous mentality. With this impostor, everything is clear, the person is sick, he clearly needs medical help. The reaction of the acquired family is also crystal clear - they did not believe, but allowed an opportunity, albeit of a fantastic nature. Common sense said one thing, but the heart did not want to believe. Try to lose the most valuable and dear. But the behavior of the authorities, the decisions they made, all this is one complete incompetence and absolute inhumanity. They are ready to immediately unconditionally believe the pathological liar and pester the feelings of people in the dirt. They judge a person for his constant pretense, and they themselves catch his every word, this is complete cretinism.
I will recommend the film for viewing, although I am not completely delighted with it, a little shorten the time and everything would be much better, but this story is definitely worth seeing.
While feature films are experiencing a period of stagnation, non-fiction, climbing deeper into foreign territory, finds new ways of development. The fourth British TV channel continues to invest in projects that push the genre boundaries of cinema. Although the main technique used by director Bart Layton is fundamentally not new, and its “tail and mane” is exploited today on TV, illustrating with the help of actors documentary events and biographies of famous people, nevertheless, here we are faced with a case where feature and non-fiction films form an almost perfectly possible union. The merit of the authors lies in the fact that they were able to win over the living participants of this story that happened 15 years ago.
That’s if you don’t take into account the backstory, dating back to 1994, when a subtile, blond and blue-eyed 13-year-old Nicholas Barkley went missing in San Antonio, Texas. Three and a half years later, it was discovered in Spain. He had dark hair, brown eyes and a French accent. He shunned people and hid his face under black glasses and a baseball cap. And the bristles on his cheeks grew as quickly as those of “persons of Caucasian nationality.” However, this did not prevent his sister, mother or other close people from recognizing him as their missing relative. What is this nonsense? you ask and you will be right. And I will answer you as if in spirit: people change. The fact that the kidnappers three years subjected Nicholas cruel torture, so his pupils and hair darkened, and in addition changed the pronunciation.
Don't you? You're right. Who knows what you would feel if you were in the shoes of your mother or sister? Missing children – what could be more unnatural? Perhaps that is why the love of loved ones becomes so blind that they do not want to see the obvious things. Is it possible for some to pretend to be blind? The British not only unearthed an extraordinary case that could slip unnoticed in the media reports, but in detail recreated all the drama of this incredible adventure. It was started and carried out at his own risk 23-year-old Frederick Bourdain.
An illegitimate and therefore unwanted child, conceived by a young French woman from an Algerian, and for this reason not accepted and cursed by a racist grandfather, all his childhood dreamed of being someone else and eventually became a chameleon man, the greatest liar like Frank Ebegnale, the hero of the popular Spielberg film. And while Catch Me If You Can was triumphantly sweeping the world, Bourdain was serving a six-year sentence in an American prison. To become a hero after another ten years, albeit not so famous, but no less impressive film The Imposter. So fame still caught up with this chronic liar, who repeatedly posed as other people and was wanted by Interpol, and after serving time took up, it was, the old, but eventually settled down – married and gave birth to children. And then he just wanted to take another revenge from fate. Bourdain admits that he felt absolutely happy the moment he first got on the yellow school bus and went to study.
“Impostor” is calibrated as a path leading to a minefield: the elaborate and elaborately constructed events and all the comments are so accurate that the movie looks like an exemplary invented thriller, like “Seven”. A mixture of documentary history and game illustrations perfectly suits this plot, where almost everything is built on lies. Therefore, claims on the part of the guardians of the “purity of the genre” in the betrayal of non-fiction cinema can not be here by definition. Moreover, our world has become so complicated that the boundaries between truth and fiction seem to be about to disappear completely. However, you still want to trust someone. Do not be surprised if this is the same Frederick Bourdain, now a 38-year-old French citizen - mature and seemingly sincere in front of the camera. He is the main and, it seems, the most honest commentator on this incredible and impressive story.
"Impostor" - this is one of those cases when the viewer still probably should not explain the basic concept of the film, we can even say with confidence that it will be more harmful than beneficial when watching. But still it is worth mentioning that the events told in the film in no case are not fiction, and moreover, very skillfully presented and harmoniously connected with staged scenes, which ultimately create the very unusual mix of a psychological thriller with a double bottom.
It is a pity that because of its anomaly of the genre, such a movie will not find a viewer in the masses and it would be much more correct, in commercial terms, to make a feature film. But without thinking twice, you can come to the logical conclusion that the unpopularity among the viewer makes this film even more valuable, and the unusualness of the genre goes only to a fat plus. It is enough to look at the fate of "Chameleon" , filmed on the same events.
The novice director Bart Layton masterfully manages to play on the nerves of the poor viewer, masterfully combining documentary archives with staged filming and temporary transitions.
Look! You will be shocked by the radical American story, shot in a rare genre of documentary feature films.
10 out of 10
A documentary about a man who successfully posed as missing children, shot as a thriller
The police station receives a call from a couple of tourists, allegedly found in the rain in a phone booth frightened and untalking teenager. Togo is taken to a local shelter, but all he learns is that he is an American, kidnapped and sexually abused for a long time. When on the other side of the world a call is heard and not the most prosperous Texas family is informed that their missing child was found after as much as 4 years in distant Spain, they at first will not believe, but soon they will seize on this straw with all their might. Meanwhile, a sufficiently grown man will report from the screen looking directly at us that he never thought about whether he was hurting someone and that he felt from childhood that he should be someone else.
If you do not know that “Impostor” is a documentary, then you can easily take it for a somewhat unusual roguish movie, in which everything is unclear seriously or you are simply being fooled. However, Frederic Bourdain is a real fraudster, and still living in France, more than 30 times posing as various missing children in various countries of Europe and even America. Now Bourdain says that he is done with his strange addiction, but it is really very difficult to believe that the almost 25-year-old young man could successfully fool the authorities, the FBI, and even the parents themselves, posing as 15-year-olds. However, newly acquired relatives are not embarrassed by the fact that their son and brother almost do not remember anything, or the fact that he had an accent, or even a change in hair and eye color.
The events told in the film and that took place in fact are interesting not only as another story from the category of “whatever happens in the world”, although in this regard it is amazing, but interesting, first of all, as a story about people killed by their grief and able to go anything up to autosuggestion, just to solve their own problems and avoid the tragedy that befell their family. At the same time, Bourdain himself tries to justify his actions by the desire to be loved and find a real family, then frankly admits that he just likes to deceive people. He manipulates the emotions of the viewer the way he did with his victims. His intuitive gift to gain trust, to play on the feelings and expectations of people, of course, one must admire, but at the same time one must realize how much grief he brought to those people who once believed him.
The film itself is unusual enough for a documentary. It is built and filmed according to the principles of game psychological thrillers with constant pressure of atmospheres. At the same time, the viewer knows in advance that Bourdain is an impostor and that, in the end, he will be caught. I can’t say that this technique works one hundred percent, personally I was somewhat bored at first and all this ostentatious playfulness and complexity slightly contradicts the lack of intrigue. However, it is impossible not to admit that in the end, both the director and the film itself achieve their goal and bring the original documentary film as close as possible to a full-fledged feature film, and the viewer begins not only to follow the plot, but also to empathize with all its participants.
“I don’t need to be deceived, I am happy to be deceived.”
Without suspecting anything, you immediately fall for the trick of a deceiver, when at the very beginning of the picture, a voice in a telephone tube with an alarming intonation reports about a guy who is afraid of everything and almost does not speak at all, urging the police to help the unfortunate, who, as it seemed to the voice, looks 14-15 years old.
Reconstructing the events, Bart Layton gives an opportunity to try out the art of cunning and reincarnation of a fraudster who for many years led the authorities of different countries by the nose, declaring himself as a minor, in an obsessive search for his place in life and in a new family.
Having gained years and finally lost his youth, Frederick Bourdain gives a master class on the organization of illusions, expounding his own view of the events of fifteen years ago, when, twisting in fantasy, he went on the trail of a long history, in order to take another’s name, continue it from his own person, unexpectedly recognized as a relative and accepted into another’s family.
It is no accident that the director rewinds the beginning of the picture back, giving one more time to be convinced of the power of the masterful execution and tactical prudence of the manipulator, who achieves the necessary decisions, producing a decisive impression, and finally finds himself surprised by the effect he himself could not expect.
For some time, the story develops in the detective line of the story about the solved crime, which is laid through interviews with the criminal and his victims - members of the family of the missing Nicholas Barkley, delighted with the find that returned them a brother and son who disappeared more than three years ago, not paying attention to the oddities that were easily noticed by outsiders - an FBI agent and a private detective who took up the investigation.
Until then, the obvious thread of history grows a criminal web of contradictory behavior of relatives who play along with the stranger, contrary to the logic and common sense of the investigators, opening their eyes to the reality, as it seems, known to them from the very first steps, surprising the criminal himself who became the object of outside play.
In the disorganized past, there is a lot of harmful mud, which neither the mother nor the sister of the missing child remembered, who gladly accepted the forgery or agreed with his illusion, entering into a crafty game with a conscience that was restless, and perhaps was, forcing an elderly detective to dig the ground to put an end to a story that turned out to be without a solution, although promised to the end.