Documentary or mockumentary? The question remains somewhat unresolved in my mind after watching "American Cannibal: the road to reality", a film about the reality tv industry. Interesting, at times fascinating, and certainly appealing to anyone with a love for the absurd, it is – even the sometimes very unstable camera work, which could easily become irritating, somehow contributes to the impression that we are watching a farce, which prevails throughout the movie.

Here's the story: After an abortive attempt to get a sitcom into production, budding screenwriters Gil and Dave of "Kan Du productions" are told by their agent that it might be a good idea to try their hand at reality tv, because that's where the market is in tv production nowadays. Both have very mixed feelings about this, but Dave has to support a family, and anyway the business is the business and if you're just starting out, you do what you have to do.

The pair moves to LA where they sleep on foam mattress covers on the floor and can't even afford a proper picture hook for their one film poster, which keeps falling off the wall. We observe the two of them pitching various increasingly abstruse ideas to various film companies, until they eventually come up with "Virgin Territory" – " Ten certified male virgins" are to be surrounded by sexually suggestive material, the one who holds out the longest without masturbating, gets to be deflowered by a porn queen. The catchline is: "If you win it, you loose it".

The team decides to pitch the idea to porn producer Kevin Blatt, whose major coup was the release of the Paris Hilton sex tapes. In the course of the pitch, Gil makes a throwaway remark about a show he dubs "Cannibal Island": the contestants are invited on an island where "cannibalism is legal", and starved of food – the joke is to see if they'll end up eating each other. Kevin is excited about "Virgin Territory" but even more so about "Cannibal island", and since his main aim in becoming a producer for reality tv is to move away from porn, he decides to put his money on the cannibal idea, now re-christened "American Cannibal".

Gil is flabbergasted – he newer intended to actually pitch this idea, he had just thought it was an illustration of the absurdity and cruelty of the entire reality tv business. But both young men get caught up in the sudden hype, which eventually leads to the actual shooting of a pilot for the show. Dave really gets into the swing of things and is full of enthusiasm, but Gil's increasing qualms about being involved in the project lead to tensions between the writing partners and long-time friends.

Well, I don't want to give away how the story ends, but although no one gets eaten, someone does get hurt, and Gil decides to quit his partnership with Dave and move back to New York and into more respectable business, while Dave moves his family to LA and becomes a happy reality tv producer – although, mercifully, "American Cannibal" never sees the light of the screen.

The film offers some interesting insights into the pitching process and the reality tv industry – one of the lessons we learn is that it is basically "reality – my – a$$ tv" but then we always knew that, didn't we? The candidates on "American Cannibal", for instance, are told that they will be flown to "Former British Guinea", an island off the African coast with "a history of cannibalism" – in reality no such place exists and the shoot takes place in the Caribbean. The contestants are also not told about the actual idea of the show, all they know is that hat they won't be allowed to eat. One of them turns out to have some form of metabolism dysfunction which makes it highly dangerous for her to go without food for any length of time – a fact which she concealed during the pitching process, out of eagerness to get onto the show.

I'm still not sure if this movie is really just a documentary, as it claims to be, or some involved mindgame playing on the layers of reality and make-believe involved in reality tv production – after all, the documentary is the ancestor of reality tv. As it turned out during the Q & A session after the movie, I was not the only one to have those doubts - I guess New Zealand audiences have become suspicious after being duped by "Forgotten Silver" all those years ago. But the filmmakers, who were present at the Wellington Film Festival screening, assured us that the film was just what it pretended to be – they said it started out as an educational project "script to screen", observing several screen writers during the pitching process, but ended up taking on a whole new dimension. Well, I'll leave that one open for everyone to watch and decide for themselves - the makers have promised us some kind of denouement if the film ever gets commercial distribution, so if I want to find out I better do my bit to promote it. :-P

review written by Asni - contact me

imdb listing for this movie

last updated: 7 August, 2006