Over the next month (10/22 - 11/22), I will be viewing and reviewing 100 films on this blog. This is entry number two in that series.
Confessions of a Superhero is one of the more thoroughly depressing documentaries I’ve ever seen. Director Matthew Ogens invites us to tour one famous stretch of Hollywood Boulevard where freelancing “actors” in homemade costumes pose as popular American icons. Dressed as anyone from Elvis Presley to Elmo, these characters pose for photographs with tourists all day long in the relentless Southern California heat. They earn no wages; their only permitted income is the unsolicited tips of charitable spectators.
Ogens’ film focuses on four of these street performers who come to work every day dressed as Superman (Christopher Dennis), Wonder Woman (Jennifer Gehrt), Batman (Maxwell Allen), and The Hulk (Joseph McQueen). Each of these jaded heroes is quixotically fascinating, though all their stories vaguely resemble those cautionary Tinseltown tales we’ve heard before.
Dennis is the ultimate obsessive-compulsive Superman fanatic. He’s elated to meet Margot Kidder, but he still tears up thinking about Christopher Reeve’s passing. Gehrt is the quintessential transplanted Midwest pageant queen; her innocent smile is saccharin, but her naivety is frightening. She realizes she may not be skinny enough to be a leading lady when her agent suggests she audition for more “voluptuous” roles.
McQueen is the foursome’s only black man. His race is rarely mentioned but it’s telling that, as a fully costumed Hulk, he’s the only hero covering up the color of his skin. McQueen can’t afford to put a mattress in his bedroom but, as he shows us the alleyway he used to live in, we understand why he’s still upbeat.
Allen, a legitimate George Clooney lookalike, is violent and possibly delusional. He attends therapy sessions—dressed like Batman, of course—and boasts about the people he killed back in Texas (“You do realize there is no statute of limitations for murder,” says his therapist at one point).
Ogens’ film is gorgeous. The settings are never dull, the colors are always rich, and the composition is unusually elegant for a documentary. The visual elements give life to the tragic limbo that imprisons these four unsatisfied people.
As a man who is only a few months away from taking the same desperate plunge, I found this film chilling. Confessions of a Superhero forces anyone with grand aspirations to reexamine their situation. Can one ever sense their own mediocrity? Am I destined for this purgatory too?
Hopefully, I’ll be the only one dressed up like Colossus.
Final Score: 86 out of 100.
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