F For Fake is a "documentary essay" in which Welles looks at art forgeries, then bounces from there to look at what is truth and reality and perception and fake and blahblahblah.
F For Fake is an obscure classic, revered by film scholars. It's on the Criterion Collection, which is a guarantee of quality, unless it's Armageddon. However, it didn't do much for me. I sat there, thinking "Wow, Orson Welles was a genius. I don't want to watch this anymore."
As an academic exercise, it's fascinating. I wasn't in the mood for an academic exercise. It reminded me a bit of Synecdoche, NY, in that it was a cerebral look at what constitutes "reality," told in a way that demands the audience to meet it halfway. In both of those instances, I failed.
