The Queen of Versailles

(Lauren Greenfield / 2012)

Very few filmmakers get interviews like this. Greenfield belongs to that rare circle of Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, and to a lesser extent, Adam Curtis. Only they can give their subjects enough rope to hang themselves. And yet an uneasy sympathy (or pity) comes through. And like Herzog and Morris, an allegorical mise en scene shares the frame with the banality of reality television tropes. Her talking head footage seamlessly fits within the gonzo construction of a perverse reality. The environment of each interview tells us as much as the subjects. They become one and the same.