The Imposter (Bart Layton, 2012)

One of the unfortunate truths about American movie audiences is that they just aren't going to go to the multiplex to see a documentary. Anyone making a documentary film has to resign themselves to the fact that they are therefore attempting to reach a smaller audience than your average narrative film. Among the many reasons that's unfortunate is that films like The Imposter exist. They are documentaries, and they can provide the same degree of suspense and skillful storytelling that any narrative can provide, and as importantly, they are generally concerned with presenting a much more realistic perspective on things that do or have actually happened or existed in the real world. They aren't works of fantasy by their very nature.

To that end, if it weren't already relatively well publicized and easy to research, I don't think the majority of audiences would believe that The Imposter is actually a real story. It's too weird to be real, and too strange to be fiction, but it's true. There are points in the film that would be impossible to believe if it weren't being relayed by the people who are actually at the center of the story. All of the major players in the events the film is depicting are interviewed in the course of the revelation of the story. It not only gives the story credibility, it also adds to the sense of suspense and it adds to the power of the final destination on the journey the film is guiding the audience on.

The Imposter is the story of Frédéric Bourdin, a twenty three year old French citizen who impersonated a missing child from a small town in Texas, and the family who took him in under the auspices that he was their missing child. It's a compelling, shocking and brilliantly told tale about the nature of identity, trust, belief, desire, and perspective. 

The Tall Man (Pascual Laugier, 2012)

Pascual Laugier made a splash on the international film scene in 2008 with his rapaciously brutal horror epic Martyrs. It was one of the most controversial films of the year. It was also a film attempting to reach for something much more than the average gore soaked fare it was lumped in with by many critics. Whether or not it managed to grasp what it was reaching for is largely subjective, based on what exactly the viewer was bringing into the film. (Note: In the interest of both transparency and to let readers know what I thought of the film, my review for Martyrs can be found here, and I can also tell you it made my list of the fifty best horror films of the decade and the list of the seventy-five best films of the decade. I'm an enthusiastic fan.) Laugier was lauded and lambasted, in classic faux-outrage fashion, for the films gore, it's graphic depiction of violence and it's general idea. He did not develop an immediately warm and cozy relationship with either the film press or the critical community.

With his English language debut The Tall Man (originally and more aptly titled The Secret), Laugier makes one thing very clear. He's not interested in making standard horror films. In what might be a feat of imagination in today's film and general media environment, he may have also developed a new storytelling structure or a new formula. Martyrs and The Tall Man, have their basic structure in common, but the films are extremely different in every other way.