Exit Through the Gift Shop

Viewers who watch and expect to be delivered a message from Exit Through the Gift Shop are choosing to watch this tale unfold from the incorrect angle. Banksy's story is not a journey with a rewarding end, but a tale showing art and beauty occurring on our very streets every night. The passion these street artists possess for their craft is immeasurable, to the extent that they risk their rights and freedom with the possibility of being arrested: all for an art form. They risk their health and safety by climbing and traveling to deathly dangerous locations, all just to find their perfect canvas. This movie isn’t about some Frenchman who has a tick for filming everything, or about a prankster’s vision; Exit Through the Gift Shop brings an underground art form into the light for the public to gain a better understanding of. It’s not just vandalism and graffiti; the artists are just choosing to use the side of a building instead of an easel and canvas. The authenticity of the film is questionable, and possibly manipulative in the method Banksy uses to edit the film together, but the story told here is less focused on the people and events, but more of the underground culture continuing to form. Banksy message and aim wasn’t to profoundly change the lives of the audience in some over-the-top manor, but instead to refute the negative connotation that street art typically receives, and to draw viewers into understanding the stories and lives of the performers. When you look out your window, or as you drive down the interstate and see those colors sprayed alongside the underpass, don’t view it as vandalism and graffiti, but consider how the artist felt and the passion coursing through his hands as he sprays his art and love onto the canvas of the world.