Product Details

• Format: NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Rated: Unrated
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00092A1IA
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #190,573 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Tarnation" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

A dark and troubling dream that David Lynch must envy, made all the more unsettling because it's true, Tarnation can only be called at auto-documentary. It's a self-portrait of the family life of Jonathan Caouette, whose mother Renee (a former child model) was forced to undergo electric shock treatment repeatedly in her youth, leading to erratic behavior throughout her life. But though the events of Caouette's life are sad, horrific, or a testament to human resilience, what makes the movie striking is how it was made: Caouette cobbled the movie together from photographs, tape recordings, and home movies that he's shot throughout his life, ranging from footage of himself at 11 years old imitating a battered wife to trashy horror movies he made as an adolescent to the first time he met his father. The unique and fluid result is mesmerizing and eerily intimate, like stepping into someone else's stream of consciousness--though few of our dreams have such a killer indie rock soundtrack. --Bret Fetzer

From The New Yorker

"Notes from the Underground" hits the age of the iMac, and it's not a pretty sight. Jonathan Caouette is a young Texan filmmaker who was raised in dismaying, sometimes brutal, circumstances and who has now trawled through them for evidence. The result is part trip, part secret journal, spliced together into a lurid public memorandum. We learn of his mother, Renee, who, by the time she bore Jonathan, in the early nineteen-seventies, had already suffered electric-shock treatment and a violent marriage. Her son was farmed out to foster parents, who maintained the cycle of harm. There is one scene in which, as a boy of eleven, he stages a plaintive drag act, and, watching it, you can barely imagine a more disturbed child; whether such disturbance makes for coherent, let alone tactful, filmmaking is another question. There are moments of graphic beauty here (Gus Van Sant, unsurprisingly, was the executive producer), but also smears of unpleasantness; if the middle-aged, once radiant Renee is now a picture of emotional damage, is it right for a loving son to trap her ravings on camera and put them on show? -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully told life that anyone can learn from, March 19, 2005

By 

A Frankness "A Frankness" (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tarnation (DVD)

Tarnation is one of the most moving pieces of art that I have seen in a very long time. When I viewed it, I think everyone in my immediate vicinity had tears in their eyes, if not all over their faces. While Johnathan Caouette is gay, the movie is about much more than that, in the same way that any straight person's life is about much more than just being straight. It is an intense journey which combines audio and visual stimulation in such a way that makes you realize that it is very real...in that same way that a song from 1995 brings you right back to where you were at that moment. It's like a documentary. Like a journal. It is this realness in the film that makes me realize that the subject is more real than any of us would like to acknowledge. Tarnation claws at a number of topics that everyone faces in their real lives because it is a documentation of a real life. Many people find it cathartic in a very literal sense of the word. It helps relieve anxiety and tension by bringing repressed feelings and fears to consciousness. Watch it and you'll see what I mean. It's well worth it.

23 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Candid, Moving, Incredibly Cheap, but Difficult to Watch., June 6, 2005

By 

mirasreviews (McLean, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tarnation (DVD)

"Tarnation" is an unusual sort of documentary. On the face of it, the film tells the story of 31-year-old filmmaker Jonathan Caouette's lifelong relationship with his Texan family, in particular his difficult but loving bond with his mentally ill mother Renée LeBlanc. But, as "Tarnation" unfolds, it seems the film is a painful attempt to pay tribute to Renée, whose mind was destroyed by hundreds of electroshock treatments, without having much of Renée to get ahold of. "Tarnation" tries to paint a loving portrait of a person who must be reconstructed from the remnants of a shattered personality. It's disturbing and powerful. At the same time, "Tarnation" is a self-portrait of Jonathan Caouette that follows his emotionally tumultuous life from his childhood, through his youth, and finally to a more satisfying life in New York City, his character somehow bound with that of his troubled mother all along.

"Tarnation" is unique in its form as well as its content. The film was famously made for only $218 and edited on Jonathan Caouette's iMac. Caouette uses photographs, old home movies, audio recordings, old television and movie clips, and a few staged reenactments to tell his story. Emulating the style of underground film that its creator has loved since his teens, "Tarnation" makes extensive use of distorted film footage and quick cutting. This doesn't make for easy viewing. The film's grating style will unfortunately limit "Tarnation"'s audience. I found the Hi-8 video manipulated to look like old Super-8 particularly unwatchable. But "Tarnation" is a no-holds-barred self-examination and loving tribute to a woman who could have been. It's fascinating and moving, and sometimes its ugliness suits the subject.

The DVD (Wellspring 2005 release): Bonus features include a U.S. theatrical trailer, a French theatrical trailer, additional scenes, a gallery of 15 movie posters, and an audio commentary. "1983/1984 Rushes" are 5 additional or extended scenes. "Unreleased Tracks" (1 minute) are 2 sequences of clips set to music that were not included in the movie. In the audio commentary, filmmaker Jonathan Caouette talks about his decisions in putting the film together, including editing and music choices. He also elaborates on some of the events in the film, providing some more details of his experiences. Subtitles for the film are available in French.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Thwarted in expectation, January 15, 2006

By 

Cj D. Vries "HRH" (CapeTown, RSA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tarnation (DVD)

I was looking forward to this movie as so many reviewers raved about it.

At the beginning I thought the execution of the material was original and fresh, but as the movie progressed I started to feel that the focus became lobsided and a bit self centered. Some moments even came across as slightly pretentious. The style also could alienate some viewers. This is not your run-of-the-mill documentary and I would recommend it to people with a vested interested in movies (given the creative way the movie was made), rather than people interested in the subjectmatter.

While I was emotionally involved in a documentary like "My Flesh and Blood", this one left me cold. Rather rent than buy.