Tarnation
Directed by: Jonathan Caouette
2003 | USA | 100 minutes | Unrated
Screening | Saturday, December 3, 2011, 7pm - 9pm |
Jonathan Caouette's Tarnation is the filmmaker's document of growing up while caring for his schizophrenic mother, her mental health deteriorating even more after a lithium overdose in 2003. Made for under $300, Tarnation combines home movies, family photographs, as well as answering machine messages and reenactments, into a portrait of Caouette's family life.
"Combining genres and formats and conventions, it is part documentary, part narrative fiction, part home movie, and part acid trip, in which Caouette charts a psychedelic whirlwind of snapshots, super-8 home movies, messages from answering machines, video diaries, early short films, snippets of 1970s and 1980s pop culture, and dramatic reenactments of episodes and people of his life. The end result is an in-depth portrait of an American family travesty." - Emanuel Levy, Cinema 24/7
Best Documentary, Los Angeles Indie Film Festival, 2004
