RECOMMENDED
Amir Bar-Lev’s second feature documentary, after “Fighter” (2001), is a firestarter. The media loved 4-year-old Marla Olmstead, a seemingly talented toddler from Binghamton, New York, whose avowed work, splatter canvases that some compared to Pollack and Kandinsky and Picasso, began to sell for thousands of dollars. The fear of exploitation by her parents grew more ominous when the canard argument of “What is art?” devolved into “Who made this art?” a few months into her time in the public eye. Bar-Lev’s film begins to question its own validity, with troubling yet gratifyingly provocative results. The last ten minutes are probably as eye-opening as any documentary about authenticity and truth could hope to be. 81m. (Ray Pride)
Reviews, profiles and news about movies in Chicago
