Part documentary, part narrative fiction, part home movie, and part acid trip. A psychedelic whirlwind of snapshots, Super-8 home movies, old answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, snippets of '80s pop culture, and dramatic reenactments to create an epic portrait of an American family travesty. The story begins in 2003 when Jonathan learns that his schizophrenic mother, Renee, has overdosed on her lithium medication. He is catapulted back into his real ... (Full plot summary below)
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Part documentary, part narrative fiction, part home movie, and part acid trip. A psychedelic whirlwind of snapshots, Super-8 home movies, old answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, snippets of '80s pop culture, and dramatic reenactments to create an epic portrait of an American family travesty. The story begins in 2003 when Jonathan learns that his schizophrenic mother, Renee, has overdosed on her lithium medication. He is catapulted back into his real and horrifying family legacy of rape, abandonment, promiscuity, drug addiction, child abuse, and psychosis. As he grows up on camera, he finds the escapist balm of musical theater and B horror flicks and reconnects to life through a queer chosen family. Then a look into the future shows Jonathan as he confronts the symbiotic and almost unbearable love he shares with his beautiful and tragically damaged mother.
Leave your thoughts about Tarnation.
| The Stranger (Seattle, WA)Sean NelsonTarnation is one of the most powerfully emotional movies I've ever seen. |
| Goatdog's MoviesMichael W. Phillips, Jr.No film has ever, ever affected me as much as this one did. I don't know whether it's a great movie, or just particularly good at hitting all of my buttons. |
| The Film YapNick RogersAs performance art born of personal pain, "Tarnation" stares teary-eyed into how genetics, culture, environment and susceptibility conspire to trigger mental illness - a documentary more to be experienced than simply viewed. |
| Los Angeles Daily NewsBob StraussBoth nakedly revealing and irrepressibly arty, it's a therapeutic home movie made as form-redefining documentary morphed into aesthetic object. |
| Reel.comPam GradyThe film is moving and disturbing at the same time. |
| Kansas City StarRobert W. ButlerFor all the horrors Tarnation exposes, it's ultimately a supremely uplifting experience for the simple reason that Jonathan Caouette survived. |
| Seattle TimesMoira MacDonaldThe mesmerizing, trippy and thoroughly heartbreaking result of two decades' work. |
| Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanOne of those documentaries about a family train wreck that makes you wonder how people consented to have their tawdry laundry washed so publicly. |
| Fresno BeeDonald MunroHere's hoping your kids' home movies never look like this. |
| Los Angeles AlternativeJay AntaniCaouette's movie succeeds because of its cinematic showmanship, injecting the personal documentary form with an urgently expressive avant-gardism. |
