GUY AND DOLLS
Mawkish version of real-life tale manages to dull a fascinating story
Back in 2010, first-time director Jeff Malmberg made Marwencol, a fascinating documentary about artist Mark Hogancamp. Brain-damaged after a vicious assault, Hogancamp worked through his trauma by creating a one-sixth scale Belgian town, circa 1944. In it lived Capt. Hogie, a miniature version of himself, alongside a bevy of strong, gorgeous women. He called the town Marwencol, blending his name with Wendy and Colleen, two real women on whom he had crushes. There were also Nazis in the town, but the dames kept them in line.
Marwencol the movie was a festival and critical darling, but its box office take of $112,000 made it merely the 322nd highest grossing film of 2010. Toy Story 3 it was not, despite some surface similarities.
So don’t fret if you haven’t seen it. In fact, it may help if you haven’t, given how fast and loose Welcome to Marwen plays with the literal truth of Hogancamp’s story.
On the other hand, familiarity with Back to the Future (highest grossing film of 1985, with $210 million) is useful. Not only did Robert Zemeckis direct both that and Welcome to Marwen, he inserts copious references to flying time machines into this new film. It was interesting and a bit disturbing at a recent preview screening to hear the audience go from laughing with him at this indulgent self-reference to laughing at him.
Steve Carell stars as the fictional version of Hogancamp, and also performs in motion-capture as the G.I. Joe-sized Capt. Hogie, bringing to life Hogancamp’s mostly Pg-rated fantasies about the feminine denizens of Marwen. (That truncated title will eventually be explained, though it isn’t really worth the wait.) In between bouts of debilitating post-traumatic stress, Hogancamp poses his dolls, taking pictures of them for an upcoming art exhibition, but also crafting intricate, involved storylines for the characters.
Marwen gets a new resident after Nicol (Leslie Mann) moves in across the street. Hogancamp visits his local hobby shop — where the owner, played by Merritt Wever, is clearly sweet on him — and buys a red-headed doll, then makes mini-nicol the new love interest of mini-hogie. And if you think this might creep out the new neighbour, especially as she’s already dealing with an unhinged ex-boyfriend, nope. Nicol just shrugs and tells him: “I get that.”
“That” includes Hogancamp’s penchant for collecting and wearing women’s shoes, a drunken discussion of which led to the assault that almost killed him. The film’s life-size plot revolves around Hogancamp’s reluctant attendance at the sentencing of his attackers, where his lawyer wants him to read a victim’s impact statement — though when one of your assailants proudly sports a swastika tattoo on his bicep, one would think sentencing would be pretty harsh already.
The documentary Marwencol saves the shoe-fetish thing as a third-act reveal. But it also includes another weird twist, straight out of a Charlie Kaufman film, that closes the film. Welcome to Marwen dispenses with that concluding brain-teaser, which I shan’t reveal in any case. Go see the original!
Instead, it tries to neatly tie up the ending with a few platitudes and a feel-good speech.
But the real story is both messier and more interesting. Truth is stranger than fiction, which in this case means fiction is more boring than the truth.