German documentarian Stanislaw Mucha sets out into Eastern Europe to visit with Slovakian relations of Andy Warhol, relations who never met Andy & have nothing intelligent to say about him, & whom Andy never met so they never had a speck of influence on him, thank the powers that be.
A couple worn-out faces have a certain beauty to them for so long as they do not talk, but there are not many of those, & everytime someone opens their mouth, dullness & ignorance is all that spews forth. These seem to be people void of insight or intelligence or self-awareness. If they are more reasonable human beings than they appear to be, the documentarian failed to show it.
Had Warhol actually known any of these people, if he had grown up in these places, it would have told us a lot about the ugliness, intolerance, & ignorance he had to overcome as an artist. But these people have Absolut nothing to do with Warhol. So unless the viewer just wants to know how bigoted, drunken, ugly, selfish, talentless, & ignorant Slav villagers can get, there's really nothing much here of interest.
The people aren't eccentric enough to be interesting in their own right, & the documentarian provides no insights regarding Warhol nor regarding this spot in the world that Warhol never saw.
The visit to the crumbling, leaking, pathetic Warhol Museum which has a "no gypsies allowed" policy provide the only moments of disgusting interest. It is jolly good the racists-run museum is falling apart & even Andy's relatives have no interest in dropping by & no loss if someone burned it to the ground.
The gypsies outside the museum whom the documentarian asked to sound off against the racist policies of the museum provided the only slight spark of intelligence encountered. Obviously if Andy ever had visited this godforsaken hellhole, he'd've stayed with the gypsies.
The village-idiot museum curator & the monkey's ass of a mayor obviously hoped the documentary would bring visitors & cash donations to their crappy town & museum. So if one enjoys seeing misplaced pride & unfulfillable greediness in action, these few moments of the film will be rewarding.
The Andy impersonator was almost entertaining, but he was imposed on the setting by the documentarian trying & failing to spice up this pointless film by inviting a complete outsider to the shoot. This invitation indicated that even the documentarian understood there was nothing of much interest about the people he was going to interview, so he'd have to bring the entertainment with him as a kind of pie-throwing imposition.
copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl
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