You may not like documentaries because they tend to make you sad or mad or both; however, you might like the style in which the story is told in a mockumentary.
Mockumentaries are parodies of reality, sarcasm at its best, presented to you in a documentary style.
The term mockumentary was first used by Rob Reiner, director of This is Spinal Tap, one of the most well known examples of this genre from the 1980’s.
Sometimes the audience knows that they are experiencing a fictional work, but sometimes not - kind of like what happened with Orson Welles’ broadcast of War of the Worlds. Either way you can enjoy the film, when you actually know what is being mocked, or after you discover that what you saw wasn't real and you fell for it. Try to keep a good sense of humor if that happens!
Below are examples of mockumentaries for your enjoyment:
- A day without a Mexican
- Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
- Best in show
- Chalk
- I’m still here
- Man bites dog
- Monty Python’s Flying Circus (lots of their sketches were done documentary style)
- Take the money and run
- This is Spinal Tap (Blu-ray)
- Zelig
