On Tickled (2016)

So I watched Tickled and it was freaking fantastic. Tickled is a documentary by David Farrier that came out of nowhere last year. Farrier is an actual journalist from New Zealand who fearlessly made this film despite facing legal threats. The film's narrative unfolds with a certain recklessness as Farrier investigates something so bizarre it's almost unbelievable.

Are you ticklish?

About the plot, it's essentially a movie about competetive endurance tickling. Take a moment to conceptualize 'competetive endurance tickling'. So, David Farrier stumbles upon a weird looking Facebook about a weird looking tickling competetion.
He embarks on an investigative journey right away and decides to film it when faced with a legal threat by the agency running the competetion. What unfolds is a story more bizarre than anything I've seen before (except Exit Through The Gift Shop). This plot description might seem like too much of a reveal, but I promise you, it's not.

For movies like Tickled, it can get difficult to draw the line between the credibility of the subject matter and that of the filmmaking on its own. It could get difficult to put focus on the masterful craft on display because of the utter absurdity of the subject matter.  
But let it be noted, Tickled is a masterful film and my second favourite documentary after the mournful Dear Zachary. There are just so many things that Tickled does right.
Farrier never shys away from showing what needs to be shown with zero sublety in the storytelling, and mind you, that is not a bad thing for a documentary about competetive endurance tickling. The soundtrack for the film is directly taken from the movie Upstream Color, but doesn't feel out of place at all. I bet if anyone who hadn't watched Upstream Color already could figure that out.

The film has interviews of various personalities at different stages which serve as small but insightful character studies which make the film all the more interesting. This film made me feel a wide variety of feelings. I was sad, depressed, happy, laughing at different points in the film.

Lies, manipulation, money, absolute sociopathy, there is just so much to absorb from this movie. I give it a nine out of ten.

To the world of tickling.