The Imposter

Hot Docs is underway! I'm going to milk this 'student' thing as long as I can. The Hot Docs Film Festival is once again offering free tickets to students and seniors for screenings starting before 6pm - it's fantastic! My schedule during the festival is busy enough that I only have 3 weekdays and the closing weekend free to watch films. As per usual, there are more films that I want to see than I have time for. Such is life.
The first film that I saw was The Imposter (official website here). Here is the festival's write-up:

The Imposter is probably the most unusual story in this year’s Festival. In 1994 a 13-year-old boy disappears without a trace from San Antonio, Texas. Three and a half years later he is found alive, thousands of miles away in a village in southern Spain with a story of kidnap and torture. His family is overjoyed to bring him home. But all is not quite as it seems. The boy bears many of the same distinguishing marks he always had, but why does he now have a strange accent? Why does he look so different? And why doesn’t the family seem to notice these glaring inconsistencies? It’s only when an investigator starts asking questions that this strange tale takes an even stranger turn...

How could you not be intrigued by the synopsis? The film was really slick. The opening credits were really feature film-esque. And the way that the film was put together is typical documentary with interviews with stakeholders, but with slick transitions and details to make it, well, kinda feature film-esque once again.
You know how I can never describe why I like or don't like a film? And that usually I'm left wishing the film was longer or that I want it to be more in-depth? This film gave me a new revelation. It left me wanting more, but in a way that I was willing to google the story and read up about it. I mean, it would have been great if there was another half hour to the film to talk a little bit more about the tail end of the story (the film ended with traditional captions with updates about different characters in the film), so I do feel a sense of finality, but it's still a little unfinished. I'm going to chalk that up to the fact that the story is insane!
Basically, this film was amazing. There were many moments where the audience was in total awe, shock and amazement in what was happening on the screen. Unfortunately, there was no Q&A with the film. That would have been amazing. In googling the film, it seems as though one of the main characters was played by an actor. That just made it even more intriguing and left me superly wanting to hear someone associated with the film talk about it. How they decided to create a film about the topic, how they decided who would be involved (and not), how they weaved the story together...so many questions!
In this case, it wasn't that I was really annoyed at the movie that I still have so many questions, but I thought so highly of the film as a result.
As per usual, I don't seem to be able to eloquently talk about this film, but I assure you that it's a film worth seeing. Partly, I don't want to say too much about the film because I think it's more enjoyable the less you know about it. I saw the final screening of the film at the festival, but maybe you will be able to see it somewhere in the future.
It's quite amazing.

- picture courtesy of www.hotdocs.ca