[Viennale.]

I’m Still Here is the mockumentary by Casey Affleck about Joaquin Phoenix‘ decision to become a rapper.

Plot:
in 2008, Joaquin Phoenix announces that he’s going to retire from acting to pursue his music career. His brother-in-law decides to document that transition. The film covers Phoenix’ tries to get P. Diddy to produce his albums, his continuous downfall and his desperate attempts to be taken seriously.

In the knowledge of the film being a hoax, I expected it to be pretty funny. But it was a painful movie (and not in a good way) that lasted too long. Phoenix performance is nothing short of amazing but the rest of the film is not worth it.

People, I can not tell you how happy I am that this movie is faked. Because it is an exercise in humiliation for Joaquin Phoenix and if he had been serious, we’d be looking at a probably suicidal and definitely severly damaged man who gets not the slightest bit of understanding or even pity from the people around him. And it’s not funny, amusing or even entertaining to watch an ill man being constantly humiliated by everyone around him.

For that matter, it’s not funny either to watch a sane man who plays an ill man being constantly humiliated by everyone around him. You always expect that somehow, Phoenix will gain the upper hand, that he will have the last word, that he will turn the tables. But he never does. Instead he gets beaten and beaten and beaten, and when he’s on the floor, he gets kicked a little more. And quite literally shit on.

There were a couple of very touching scenes in the film. The opening for instance, or when Phoenix reads from An Awesome Book [which looks to be extremely cute], or his breakdown in Central Park. As I said before, Phoenix is a brilliant actor and he plays this part perfectly.

But quite apart from the content, I thought that the film went on too long and could have done with some tightening. The audio and video qualities are – not surprisingly for the way it was shot – quite bad which I wouldn’t have minded so much if it hadn’t meant that I didn’t actually understand most of the lyrics of the rap songs – and I would have liked to. They seemed to be pretty important.

Summarising: unless you’re in a particular sado-masochistic mood, skip it.