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Hot Docs review: 306 Hollywood

306 HOLLYWOOD (Elan Bogarín, Jonathan Bogarín, U.S.). 94 minutes. Rating: N


After their grandmother Annette Ontell dies in 2011, siblings Elan and Jonathan Bogarín decide to “excavate” her Newark home and the belongings she left behind. The result is the most excruciating, self-consciously whimsical documentary imaginable, a hipster testament that I honestly wanted to set on fire.

The siblings spent their lives videotaping themselves, their grandmother and their mother, Marilyn, and that footage is sprinkled throughout the film. There’s also plenty of footage of Elan and Jonathan discussing the things they find in the house, and there is not one goddamn second in which they are not performing for the camera. The whole thing is pitched at a level of twee self-congratulation, and the movie gets worse and worse as the Bogaríns deploy one wacky device after another.

Items are lined up in tableaux that Wes Anderson might find a little much. An audiotaped fight is re-enacted with actors lip-syncing the argument. A cache of vintage foundation garments and dresses leads to a dance sequence with befrocked women swanning around the front yard.

I have no illusions that some will find this film’s eccentricities and endless stylistic quirkery refreshing and adorable, and it’s true that, as documentaries go, 306 Hollywood is anything but conventional.

But it’s so convinced of its charms that it quickly becomes insufferable it’s like being trapped in a corner at a party with a person who doesn’t understand you wanted to leave an hour ago. NW

April 30, 9:15 pm, TIFF 2 May 2, 4 pm, TIFF 2 May 5, 3:30 pm, Scotiabank 13.

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