Deformer

A documentary about Californian skateboarder and artist Ed Templeton. Or at least that was how it was described to me and, although I had never heard of the guy, I figured it was worth a look. In the very first few scenes we have Templeton lying on his bed making "notes to self" while his wife says semi-slogans over the top of his dialogue. This is followed by a shot of a gas station (or something) with an overlain audio track of Templeton and Mills discussing who would win in fights involving Spiderman, Superman, King Kong and so on. At this point I twigged that I probably wasn't going to learn very much from it and indeed I was correct as the film seemed to be engulfed by its own sense of importance, depth and complexity – coming over as heavily pretentious as a result.

It is hard to describe as it sweeps the whole film. We get lots of clever and creative shots but they only add to the negative effect. Templeton himself hardly helps as he mumbles "meaningful" stuff all the time and most of it sounds like it could have come from a moody teenager who craves being "different" in a mostly safe western world. For Templeton there is no questioning from this film but more an acceptance that his paintings are worth talking about (from what I say here, they are not) and that his general creative spirit is worth exploring (naked photos, desires and inner worries do not suggest this is true.

Overall then, a rather pretentious film that offered me very little other than annoyance. Visually it has some nice touches but mostly it is dragged down by the way it just allows Templeton to drone on in a very self-important way, making him come off as an arty ass and make me wonder why someone felt he was worth 17 minutes of film.