Catfish

A documentary following the development of an online friendship. Unintentionally, the Schulman's and Joost find themselves on a journey to discover what is actually real.

This documentary stirs up a lot of emotions. Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost start documenting the beginning of Nev's online friendship with a young girl called Abi. The documentary contains surprising twists and leaves you on the edge of your seat as the boys begin to question what's real. With the filmmakers unsure of what is coming next at the time of filming, it feels as though you too are on the journey to discover the truth. A brilliant, entertaining, thought provoking, (slightly scary) documentary.

Catfish is both a reflective and interactive documentary. It is filmed with all of the participants responding to questions asked of them throughout. Nev is consistently asked how he feels on the situation and at the end of the film even more questions are asked of even more people; as the filmmakers and Nev try to eliminate the lies and locate the truth. The filmmakers make their case as the film continues, this is because they had no idea how the story would play out. There is emphasis on how the film is made all the way through the documentary. They are as equally interested in the process of making the film and how reality is constructed. They show this through various shots of them holding cameras, asking questions etc.

The first lines have a significant impact on how the movie concluded. Nev's quote "set it up, organise a time with me, put together some materials, emails, we'll get the Facebook conversation printed out and really talk about it" shows how a documentary normally plays out. In normal circumstances filmmakers know the route they want the story to go down. However in this case, they didn't know what was going to happen - it was completely spontaneous. This adds to the film and helps drive the emotion in the film and out, felt by the audience.

If Catfish had involved the specific level of planning that you usually associate with the factual genre I don't think it would have been as good. When watching the film, you feel as though you are also on the journey to discover the truth. What you are seeing on the screen is people's true reactions to what is happening.