The film itself raises a very important question as to what is real and what isn’t. Things which we see in real life on various types of media may not necessarily be true as shown in this particular text, one person was able to create many accounts using pictures of people they have never met whilst creating false friendships. The ‘Catfish’ is claimed to be a factual text and the events, which we see on screen have actually happened to Yaniv ‘ Nev’ Schulman who’s the main character in this film. However the realism of this film is a controversial subject. Firstly as Nev was looking through Megan’s Facebook profile, we are able to see the so-called ‘likes’ on her statuses. However since the movie is happening in 2008 the ‘like’ button itself did not exist yet. This is one of the many reasons as to why the realism of this movie is questioned. The use of handicapped people who were Angela’s stepsons would not be morally right if the story was a fiction because they wouldn’t be able to speak for themselves as to whether or not they would want to be a part of this documentary. In my opinion the ‘Catfish’ had almost that Paranormal Activity feel where all the actions seem real but in reality it’s the camera angles used and the very naturalistic acting.
The use of technology and its use is the key feature in this film. It is fascinating to see the use of technology to both cut costs and enhance the film. Rather than using expensive tricks to film a mysterious location the filmmakers use Google Maps to show the street. With Facebook status updates and wall comments used as part of the narrative, the filmmakers merely show a status change, for example Megan becoming single, and it tells a part of the story in a fresh way. The film also shows the influence that technology is having on the documentary film genre. Most importantly the film was made with a few HD camera and a computer.
There are a few key scenes in this film, which I believe are the most powerful. Firstly starting off with the initial message from Abby, Nev had received and his reaction to the email and the painting. This begun their long yet not so real friendship but we are able to see how that inspired and intrigued the main character. More importantly as Nev and Megan’s relationship developed, he finally got slightly suspicious when Megan’s songs to him were not actually hers. We could see the regret in his eyes as he had spent a couple of months messaging and getting attached to someone who he had never even met and the only pictures he had seen of her are the ones posted on Facebook. This particular incident had started off Nev’s, Henry’s and Ariel’s adventure in order to find out the truth behind all the lies – they begun their long research on the subject only to find out nothing seems to add up; Abby’s paintings which are supposedly in a gallery do not exist and the actually gallery itself is an empty building in downtown Michigan. Lastly the scene in which he initially meets Angela only to see her open the door and look as shocked as him. She obviously does not look like the picture she had posted on Facebook and neither does her family. That’s the turning point of the story when Nev actually begins to realize that the women he fell in love with was Angela. When meeting the family it becomes more and more visible how troubled Angela really is and the only reason why she created this world was to escape. All the personalities she virtually created were just fragments of who she was and who she always wanted to be. She was always a Megan at heart yet she never got a chance to be her.
As it’s a documentary people presented are most of all real but since the movie begins from Nev’s perspective there are only little clues which tell us about the other key characters who change over time. We see Nev as a friendly calm character from the way he deals with an eight-year-old Abby and the rest of her family. This is quite different to how most people would react considering the big age difference between them however he was very open minded and curious about the starting friendship. As the time went by we begun to see different sides of him, for instance when he found out Megan wasn’t real – his facial expressions showed his frustration. There’s also a scene in the movie in which he describes finding out more about the situation as a choir and blamed Ariel and Henry for telling him how to live his own life. However in the end after speaking to Angela we see the friendly Nev back who’s conscious of her feelings and does not what to hurt her. To start off with Angela was portrayed as the attractive mother and that’s how she wanted to be portrayed since she chose that very picture of a random woman and made it her profile picture on Facebook. There’s little we learn about her when we see Nev’s and Megan relationship grow and develop nevertheless when Nev stands face to face with the ‘real’ Angela we see a troubled elderly, hopeless, unhappy woman. Our view of her instantly changes, as she’s no longer portrayed as the attractive mother. We as an audience can empathize with her pain as she talks about her dreams which never came true as she sacrificed them for her own family but also personally it made me happy to see such a wonderful turn our of Nev changing her life around.
Overall the ‘Catfish’ even though it was filmed ‘accidentally’ as the story was unfolding and probably for their own entertainment, it carries a message behind the use of Internet. It displays how influential the Internet actually is particularly Facebook which is also presented in ‘The Social Network’ as it shows how the social-networking website Facebook was found. One person is able to create fictional characters, which are simply just pictures of accidental people and create plenty of relationships through that. It is extremely dangerous especially for naïve children who believe in everything they read. In Nev’s case he was lucky the woman Angela who was behind all of those people was harmless and was actually sorry for what she’d done. However there are many cases of people starting friendships through Facebook only to discover that the person behind the computer is somebody entirely different. Sadly there are many situations were this ends badly: kidnaps, rapes, killings and numerous more.