Marwencol

Plot

On April 8, 2000, Mark Hogancamp was attacked outside of a bar by five men who beat him nearly to death. After nine days in a coma and forty days in the hospital, Mark was discharged with brain damage that left him little memory of his previous life. Unable to afford therapy, Mark creates his own by building a 1/6-scale World War II-era Belgian town in his yard and populating it with dolls representing himself, his friends, and even his attackers. He calls that town "Marwencol," a portmanteau of the names "Mark," "Wendy" and "Colleen."

Mark was initially discovered by photographer David Naugle, who documented and shared his story with Esopus magazine and then his work was shown in a New York art gallery. But having the label of "art" applied to his intensely personal work forces Mark to make a choice between the safety of his fictional town and the real world he's avoided since his attack.

Production

The film was shot in New York State in the United States between 2006 and 2010, using a combination of DVCAM video and Super-8 film formats.

Reception

The film received widespread critical acclaim, holding a 98% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The site awarded the film their "Golden Tomato" Award for the best-reviewed documentary of the year. The Los Angeles Times called the film “an exhilarating, utterly unique experience” while the Village Voice said that it's “exactly the sort of mysterious and almost holy experience you hope to get from documentaries and rarely do.”

The film was in the year-end top ten lists of the Boston Globe, The Globe and Mail, Slate, New York magazine, The Oregonian, National Public Radio, and many others.

The film was included in Entertainment Weekly's July 6, 2012 article "50 Best Movies You've Never Seen".

In the 2012 Slate article and online poll, "The Golden Age of Documentaries: What's the Best Doc of the Last 5 Years?", Marwencol was ranked #1 in the poll.

In the 2012 PBS/POV online poll, "The 100 Greatest Documentaries of All Time", Marwencol was ranked #91 in the poll.

In the April 22, 2013 New York article, "How Documentary Became the Most Exciting Kind of Filmmaking", Marwencol was among the films in the accompanying list, "The 20 Essential Documentaries of the Century".

In September 2016, Cinema Eye Honors named Marwencol as one of the 20 top non-fiction films of the past decade, based on a poll of 110 key figures in the documentary community.

In popular culture

On October 24, 2013 it was announced that Robert Zemeckis will be directing a narrative version of the documentary for Universal Studios. Caroline Thompson will write the script. A release for this narrative version was confirmed for November 21st 2018, with Steve Carell as the lead.

The entirety of Fox's sitcom Raising Hope Season 2 Episode 9 ("The Men of New Natesville") is a reference to and parody of the documentary, including a mention of the film by one of the characters.

The Spike Jonze-directed music video for the Beastie Boys song "Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win" was inspired by the film and Hogancamp's world.

The Russian musical group The Saint Petersburg Disco Spin Club released a track in 2011, "Marwencol".

The American punk rock group Tough Broad released the 2012 song, "Marwencol".