X
- 2010
- Not Rated
- The Cinema Guild
- 1 h 23 m
- 2010
- Not Rated
- The Cinema Guild
- 1 h 23 m
Summary On April 8, 2000, Mark Hogancamp was brutally attacked outside of a bar by five men. Revived by paramedics, Mark had suffered brain damage and physical injuries so severe even his own mother didn’t recognize him. After nine days in a coma and 40 days in the hospital, Mark was discharged with little memory of his previous life. Unable to ...
- 2010
- Not Rated
- The Cinema Guild
- 1 h 23 m
- 2010
- Not Rated
- The Cinema Guild
- 1 h 23 m
Marwencol
7.8
Where to Watch
Summary On April 8, 2000, Mark Hogancamp was brutally attacked outside of a bar by five men. Revived by paramedics, Mark had suffered brain damage and physical injuries so severe even his own mother didn’t recognize him. After nine days in a coma and 40 days in the hospital, Mark was discharged with little memory of his previous life. Unable to ...
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 18 Critic Reviews
82
94% Positive
17 Reviews
17 Reviews
6% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 18 Critic Reviews
82
94% Positive
17 Reviews
17 Reviews
6% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Watching Marwencol, Jeff Malmberg's probing documentary on Hogancamp's undertaking, is an exhilarating, utterly unique experience.
This tender documentary considers the mysteries of both art and coping.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 19 User Ratings
7.8
79% Positive
15 Ratings
15 Ratings
16% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
5% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 19 User Ratings
7.8
79% Positive
15 Ratings
15 Ratings
16% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
5% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
What if art become a form of therapy? This film portrays the strory of this bizarre man using an extraordinariness and miraculousness of art as a therapy to help him able to cope with the expensive lesson he had learnt from the cruelty and heartedness of people who share the same world as himself. It is new, strange and conducts the super unfimiliar life circumstance of this man with such an enormous maniacal expression. A strange yet very beautiful documentary.
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This straightforward, low budget documentary tells the weird, moving, and unforgettable story of Mark Hogancamp, a man who suffered severe brain trauma as the result of a beating by a gang of young thugs. As he struggled to get back mentally to where he had been before, he became obsessed with creating dioramas starring toy soldiers, and having them act out dramatic tales, which he would photograph. Eventually some people in the art world took notice of him, and he began having some success. It is wonderful to see that, but it is still quite sad to see a grown man walk down the side of a road pulling a toy Jeep full of toy soldiers whom he feels will protect him from danger.
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Exactly the sort of mysterious and almost holy experience you hope to get from documentaries and rarely do, Jeff Malmberg's Marwencol is something like a homegrown slice of Herzog oddness, complete with true-crime backfill and juicy metafictive upshot.
Marwencol brings you into Hogancamp’s world as a guest, and as his story slowly unfolds, you come to understand what these stories really mean to him and to his mental health. It’s a quiet, extraordinary film.
If you have even a passing interest in outsider art, you owe it to yourself to see Marwencol.
Hogancamp is a complex character, and Marwencol introduces the man in layers, creating an incomplete yet sympathetic portrait specialty audiences and hipsters can agree on.
When it comes to capturing the man behind the phenomenon, however, the film never progresses beyond a superficial, weird-yet-wonderful portraiture.
Reminds me of recent documentary Catfish, in that it captures an incredible story that could never have been foreseen at the beginning of the project; however, unlike Catfish, this documentary would have been very interesting with or without its several surprises. What does it look like for art to be therapy? This story gives an incredibly intriguing answer to that question.
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Marwencol is a touching story of a man that lost everything in a bar fight. He now creates the world that he never had with action figures and barbie dolls in great detail. It's an interesting story and any filmmaker would pick up on such a unique centerpiece for a film. However sometimes it seems that the film tells us more about what hasn't happened and less about what has. Still a great documentary.
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Production Company
Open Face
Release Date Oct 8, 2010
Duration 1 h 23 m
Rating Not Rated
Genres
Tagline When his world was stolen, Mark Hogancamp made a world of his own.
Awards
Cinema Eye Honors Awards, US
• 1 Win & 4 Nominations
Film Independent Spirit Awards
• 2 Wins & 3 Nominations
Boston Society of Film Critics Awards
• 2 Wins & 2 Nominations