I Am Martin Parr review – a one-sided artist portrait

What a strange little promo piece this is for the venerated British documentary photographer Martin Parr. He is an artist who is known for his elevated versions of the saucy seaside snap, usually depicting working class revellers enjoying junk food and alcohol which are intended to symbolise the grotesque dimensions of rampant consumer capitalism. 

Lee Shulman’s film is uninterested in anyone who finds Parr’s work to be offensive, derisive, cheap, gaudy or opportunistic. It lines up a multilingual phalanx of talking heads to sing his praises, with the highly subjective, ​“He’s just so funny!” defence being trotted out repeatedly. And no-one is really able to justify a negative reaction beyond some flim-flammy bet-hedging such as, ​“If you don’t like him, I just think you’re wrong.”

There’s a story about the question of Parr’s induction into the international photographic cooperative, Magnum – a prestigious arts body with which his style of on-the-lam colour flash photography violently clashes. We hear that half the voting members threatened to burn their member cards if he was allowed in. The other half, meanwhile, threatened to burn their cards if he wasn’t. Yet that down-the-middle chasm in appreciation is framed as a stuffy conservative old guard rejecting modernity and progress, rather than a reflection of the fact that, for every person who loves him, there’s another who really doesn’t.

In the film he comes across as an avuncular sort of chap, someone who’s smiley and pleasant and in no way the chest-puffing artiste. His method is to just wander around and wait for the stars to align when he’ll then pull out his camera and take a few snaps. Sometimes he asks his subjects if they’ll pose for him, other times he just fires off a few stealthy rounds and trundles off with his cachet (he is seen walking with a mobility aid in the film).

Obviously everyone is entitled to their opinions about Parr, but it’s hard not to come away from this film and not see him as some sort of class traitor who prizes satire over empathy. We see archive footage of him photographing people with ostentatious jewellery, handmade clothing and ridiculous tattoos, telling his subjects how much he loves their style. But you don’t believe it for a minute: it’s all part of Parr’s ruse to swiftly ingratiate himself with his subject until he’s gotten what he needs. The relationship between artist and subject when it comes to Parr is presented as deeply superficial; at least someone like Diane Arbus really created some fascinating questions about that relationship in her famed portraits of society’s fringe figures.

While this might read like a Parr skeptic sounding off, it’s more about finding the tensions, controversies and problems with his art far more interesting and valuable than simply being lobbied to believe that he’s a national treasure.