By Emery Snyder @leeroy711
Director:
Starring:
Hulu Original – June 16, 2019
Veteran of comedy television, Ben Berman (Lady Dynamite, Tim
& Eric) documents the swan song tour of beloved comedian/magician, The Amazing
Johnathan (Johnathan Szeles) … At least that seems to have been the original
intent of this film. Very quickly however, we find that all is not as it seems.
Szeles, who has been given a terminal heart diagnosis has apparently invited
more than just Berman along to document his final days. Competition, skepticism
and the ominous presence of the subject’s penchant for ‘slight-of-hand’ all
play a part of this story’s (mis)direction.
Around fifteen minutes into the movie, we find that Johnathan
has, unbeknownst to Berman, invited a second documentary team to make a film
about him. Both camera crews are present, filming his tour, his health issues,
his drug use and each other. The second crew is associated with Oscar Award winner,
Simon Chinn (MAN ON WIRE, SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN). This immediately puts an
entirely different twist on the film, pitting two storytellers against each
other, in a marketplace that is already over-saturated with documentaries. As access
to the subject is played out in this tug-of-war, even more filmmakers emerge,
all working on the same subject matter.
Is Johnathan simply trying to get the
most out of his legacy? Or is this all part of some elaborate and boorish prank
he’s playing? And if it is a prank, who is it even directed at? The filmmakers?
The audience? And most importantly, how much of what is seen here can even be taken as factual? Is Johnathan even really dying? At one point, Berman’s friend even metaphorically speculates, “Put this in real life terms…” as if magic, comedy and/or filmmaking
are not real jobs and terminal illness is not real life.
This metatextuality of the film, for better or worse, couldn’t
help but immediately change what the story was about. And in that, I
was a bit disappointed. I’ve been a fan of The Amazing Johnathan since I caught
one of his acts on a late-night stand-up show in the nineties. He’s always been
a fascinating character with a wholly original act and I would love to see a ‘bio-doc’
of sorts about his life. But the moment that the second crew shows up, the
subject of this doc changes to include Berman as well as the film itself. Throughout
the runtime, we see more and more of Berman questioning and pontificating what story
he’s actually trying to tell, and less of Johnathan. I’m quite sure that Berman’s
friends and family end up with more screen time Johnathan’s. All of this coupled
with the additional metatextuality of the streaming wars and I was quickly
reminded of the dueling Fyre Festival docs released within a week of each other
by Hulu and Netflix earlier this year.
At the end of the day, if you take this film at face value,
I think it served as a learning experience and an exploration for the filmmaker
that likely began this process with an entirely different idea about what kind
of story he was telling. It actually reminds me of early Herzog in that
respect. I think most of the best documentaries ever made went wildly off the
rails at some point of their production. This one is especially unique because
it essentially serves as its own ‘making of’ special feature.
Emery’s Rating
3.5 out of 5 Stars
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