VICE Magazine taught me a valuable life lesson: if you look hard enough, you will find the reality media are refusing to report, the people everybody has forgotten about or the alternative lifestyles we didn't know existed. It's always awesome to look beyond what you already to know. Vivian Maier died in complete anonymity in 2009. She was 83 years old. The world was still unaware that she was one of the best street photographers of the 20th century. FINDING VIVIAN MAIER is the story of her post-mortem and John Maloof's investigation on her past. The fortunate, yet accidental discovery of such a remarkable talent begs the question: what kind of person keeps such a treasure entirely to herself?
John Maloof was working on an history project about Chicago when he bought Vivian Maier's negatives at an auction. He quickly understood he was on to something special when he got them developped. Something that transcended his project on Chicago history by a long shot. So Maloof began investigating on this mysterious, transcendent photographer who seemed to have fell from the face of the Earth. Turns out Vivian Maier was a maid, who worked with several families in Chicago, a lonely, tortured soul who carried a camera around her neck wherever she went, in order to reconstruct the expansive world through the prism of her lens. Oh, and she didn't leave many good memories to the children and the families she lived with. That was kind of awkward.
The character of Vivian Maier is fascinating. Her material is moving beyond what words can define and that alone will give you a kick out of watching FINDING VIVIAN MAIER. But the documentary process here is an exercise in going too far. There are several interviews with the families she used to work for and it's super uncomfortable to see them ransack their minds to find too things to say about Vivian Maier.The didn't leave much of an impression to some and she left straight out bad memories to other, traumatic stuff that help building the human, flawed side of Maier, but that make John Maloof come off as this obsessive stranger who walks into people's lives to remind them of something they'd have rather forget. Vivian Maier struggled with psychological issues all her life. It made her do mean things to children, but all I really got from the awkward, oddly disingenuous interviews in FINDING VIVIAN MAIER is how insanely lonely she must've been.
One of Vivian Maier's breathtaking street portraits. For more, click here.
The mystery aspect of FINDING VIVIAN MAIER was quite compelling. John Maloof goes through extensive research to try and piece her identity back together. He hired a genealogy expert (who claims Vivian Maier is one of the most difficult cases he ever worked on), he travels to France, to a village where people still remember her 50 years later or so and follows her every step until the end of her life. It's fascinating how little Maloof gets out of this process. She went into the world, captured the essence of humanity on film and yet nobody was ever intrigued by her presence. It's like Vivian Maier existed solely through her photographs, so therefore she's existing more than ever now that she's dead, but famous.
John Maloof is still curating a good part of Vivian Maier's photographs. He's organized several successful exhibits, edited books about her, it's reasonable to think he's made good money off her work. I thought FINDING VIVIAN MAIER was kind of a cynical experience, that tried to highlight the earnest nature of John Maloof's journey, but it's when you try deliberately to make a point about something that should come organically that it ends up sounding out of key. I'll give him that the subject of his film is utterly fascinating and he deserves 100% of the credit for making Vivian Maier the photography superstar she deserved to be.It's just, you know, quite uncomfortable at times. At least, it was for me. It's hard not to recommend it, though. FINDING VIVIAN MAIER is a polarizing, riveting documentary. I have my qualms with it, but sometimes good movies just know how to pry reactions out of you, whether it's good or bad. Sometimes it's both.
