Witness: I Hate Myself : )

Title: i hate myself :)

Director: Joanna Arnow

Year: 2013

Trailer: Youtube

Facebook

Joanna Arnow spends a year of her life locked in a presumably empty relationship with a “racially charged poet-provocateur” who happens to also be a complete asshole and the best part is she decided to film it.  This is the premise of her new documentary entitled, “i hate myself :)” which was presented on nobudge.com (it’s up there today only with a Live @&A at 8:30 est).

The poet in question is James Kepple.  He has racist tendencies and in some other ways represents extreme views about society and politics.  However, what’s most important to this film is that he appears afraid of serious emotional connection – it’s all loose and lofty, always.   He’s kind of a loud mouth, he’s boisterous and self-important.  He’s got ego for days.  Frankly, that is just James Kepple.  I think he’d appreciate that.

Arnow and Kepple have what appears to be a relationship that is almost entirely one-sided.  In the least, they differ absolutely in the concept of their relationship.  While Arnow expresses a deeper or more traditional love, Kepple’s love is clearly insincere as he avoids questions of it and manipulates several conversations to benefit his own perverted view of their relationship.

The fact that Arnow stayed with Kepple for a year is what’s actually interesting here.  There is a sense of loneliness that pushes her to stay.  At one point she suggests that she enjoys the relationship because she is attracted to his charisma and that in some way it removes her from a “static” and “confined” life stagnated to specified areas and peoples of the city.  In reading between the lines of her emotions and statements throughout the film we realize that her real reason for staying is a reflection of the title itself.  Arnow thinks it’s acceptable to be plagued by the brutish insolence of Kepple and to subsist in such a one-sided relationship because she ultimately hates herself.  In a lot of ways I found Arnow to be a real life Hannah (Lena Dunham in GIRLS) or, more to the truth, Hannah is a televised version of Arnow.

The one thing everyone will appreciate about this documentary is its purity.  It throws the viewer into something that is utterly real and therefore utterly effective.  There is a beauty in its anarchistic sense of emotional exhibition that makes us watch in amazement.  The beauty we behold is a synthesis of emotional truth (purity) and real-world terror (train-wreck aesthetics). 

We should all thank Joanna for being so direct and honest in a world that’s so often distant and hollow.  I got to say, i like her :)