If this was the Cold War we could keep each other warm
Watched 'Catfish' last night and just like the trailer suggested it wasn't at all what I was expecting.
What I anticipated was something dark, creepy, and mind-blowing and while that's exactly what I got it wasn't at all how I'd expected I'd get it. I had to pause the movie a few times to get up and defrag and shake off the intense discomfort that settles over you like a heavy blanket as the film progresses and you find yourself giving confused and uncomfortable looks to the people watching it with you.
Without giving too much away (I hope) it made me reconsider what a social medium like FaceBook is capable of and how much we can really expect to ever know about someone we meet online until we see them in the flesh. The ability that we now have to craft these perfectly tailored online versions of ourselves is at the same time exhilarating and terrifying.
When it was all said and done the thing that blew me away the most -and why I am highly, highly recommending it to you- is that it is apparently all based in truth. It's not a mockumentary, but apparently genuine fact.
The story is almost too good (read: crazy) to be true, and if it is in fact a total fabrication then it's one of the best pieces of metafiction I've ever seen, because the sheer amount of work that would go into building, maintaining and upholding a story of that magnitude would be phenomenal.
But if it's true, as the directors/producers/actors claim, then it is truly an example of how real-life is always stranger than fiction.
