FRAUD American Independents

Who is the author of a film — its director or its subject? And what is real — an identity presented to the world, or a secret self? These are just some of the questions raised by Dean Fleischer-Camp’s FRAUD. An AFI FEST alum with a résumé of defiantly original work, Fleischer-Camp presents audiences here with something even more bracing and new, a stitched-together narrative that follows an all-American family via home movies on YouTube. As these films putter across the landscape of modern American consumerism, we watch the family members ceaselessly pursue pleasure and diversion at malls, amusement centers and other temples of Americana designed to separate people from their money. But not all of the money being swept away from them is their own, and this fractured funhouse mirror reveals a family unit on the verge of unraveling. FRAUD is a beguiling work of art that leaves you with as many questions as answers. — Lane Kneedler