Opening

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—— Alyce Kills May 24

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Coming Soon

—— After Earth May 31
—— Now You See Me May 31
100% The Kings of Summer May 31
89% The East May 31

Tarnation (2003)

tomatometer

92

Average Rating: 7.7/10
Reviews Counted: 103
Fresh: 95 | Rotten: 8

Using music and home video footage to great effect, Jonathan Caouette has made a very personal and moving film.

97

Average Rating: 8.2/10
Critic Reviews: 36
Fresh: 35 | Rotten: 1

Using music and home video footage to great effect, Jonathan Caouette has made a very personal and moving film.

audience

81

liked it
Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 7,266

My Rating

Movie Info

In the making since the director was 11-years-old and completed on a reported budget of about 200 dollars, Jonathan Caouette's Tarnation is an experimental and self-reflective mix of documentary and fiction. Bringing together a collection of home movies, family photos, answering machine messages, reenactments and Caouette's video diary, the film attempts to delve into the filmmaker's experiences growing up queer with a schizophrenic mother and dealing with her 2003 lithium overdose, which

May 17, 2005

$0.4M

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All Critics (110) | Top Critics (37) | Fresh (99) | Rotten (8) | DVD (10)

'Tarnation': A Filmic Diary of a Chaotic Life, Consisting of Mosaic-Like Bits and Pieces of Memorabilia

January 30, 2007 Full Review Source: Passionate Moviegoer
Passionate Moviegoer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Nearly impossible to watch, thoroughly unpleasant yet strangely arresting.

April 15, 2005 Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel
Orlando Sentinel
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A soul-baring scrapbook of a film, its audacity surpassed only by its tragedy.

March 24, 2005 Full Review Source: Arizona Republic
Arizona Republic
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Although aggressively unconventional, it's never pretentious.

January 21, 2005 Full Review Source: Toronto Star
Toronto Star
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An astonishing multimedia diary ... all accompanied by a scrolled family history that is as harrowing to read as a ransom note.

January 21, 2005 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail
Globe and Mail
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The movie climbs inside your head and rattles your consciousness.

December 10, 2004
Denver Rocky Mountain News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Witness his hilarious high school musical rendition of David Lynch's Blue Velvet: much like the documentary itself, it's a heartbreaking, beautiful monstrosity.

November 7, 2012 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine Australasia
Empire Magazine Australasia

An original, personal, emotionally touching documentary, which represents a new type of indie, based on innovating filmmaking.

May 14, 2011 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com
EmanuelLevy.Com

As performance art born of personal pain, "Tarnation" stares teary-eyed into how genetics, culture, environment and susceptibility conspire to trigger mental illness - a documentary more to be experienced than simply viewed.

October 21, 2010 Full Review Source: Suite101.com
Suite101.com

Jonathan had plenty to be woeful about, but the movie is best when it slips quietly into the pockets between his family's dramatic episodes.

June 2, 2008 Full Review Source: Paste Magazine
Paste Magazine

Como toda confesión, en la que alguien desnuda su intimidad sin pudor para quien quiera escuchar, Tarnation es capaz de generar desde la fascinación curiosa hasta la incomodidad y el rechazo.

November 13, 2006 Full Review Source: Uruguay Total
Uruguay Total

Tarnation takes its place alongside other classic cinematic celebrations of mental restriction in juxtaposition to lofty life goals.

June 8, 2005 Full Review Source: DVDTalk.com
DVDTalk.com

The film is in the May program of the Charlotte Film Society, and even the CFS has offered few pictures this compellingly strange.

May 13, 2005 Full Review Source: Charlotte Observer
Charlotte Observer

Audience Reviews for Tarnation

A little too self-indulgent at times to be considered a "documentary", but all in all a very creative and moving look at life.

Once you let go and just go along for the ride...you are off on a journey into the psyche of a family in turmoil.

It's not always an enjoyable journey, but it is one in which (after being led through a gamut of emotions) you are ultimatley led back to the point of origin, which is love.

A great reminder of the fact that while we can not choose our families...we are (ultimatley) in control of just how much we allow them to adversely effect our lives as adults.

One of the tough questions that we all have to deal with at some point is: At what point do you let go of all of the negative family baggage (that we all carry to some extent) and decide to start living your own life and making decicions based on doing what is best (and most helathy) for you?

These are some of the hard choices in life and this film really makes you think about them.
May 27, 2008
RCCLBC
Robert C

Super Reviewer

[font=Century Gothic]"Tarnation" is a documenary made by and about Jonathan Caouette. Its starting point is his mother's lithium overdose in 2001 and then reviews the facts of his mother's life, followed by his own, mostly through photographs, 8mm film, and odd film clips(It took me ten minutes to get the "Rosemary's Baby" reference but still have no idea about "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.") as fed through and spit out by a computer.[/font]
[font=Century Gothic][/font]
[font=Century Gothic]"Tarnation" is an exercise in amateur narcissism that only serves to make the viewer uncomfortable in a shared voyeurism. The only sequences of merit are when he explores his mother's mental illness and what it is to care for a mentally ill person.(How Caouette made it out of such a situation as a stable adult is only partially explained by his moving from Houston to New York.) [/font]
March 12, 2006
Harlequin68
Walter M.

Super Reviewer

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