"We Live in Public" Review

We Live in Public (2009)

Dir: Ondi Timoner

“If you eat me... I’m a memorable meal.”

“We Live in Public” is Ondi Timoner’s 10 year chronicling of Josh Harris; a Marshall McLuhan like figure of the Internet age. Harris was a visionary and a pioneer, and if you didn’t know that, it’s OK, the film spends it’s first 15 – 20 minutes telling you.

One thing that I find kind of annoying in certain documentaries is when the talking head interview is used to explain what is going on onscreen. As a viewer it can feel patronizing and condescending if done poorly, even if that’s not the filmmaker’s intent.

Now that that slight nit-pick is out of the way I can get to the stuff that I liked about the film; and there’s plenty. The film is epic in scale following the rise and fall of Josh Harris. Harris was an Internet entrepreneur, specialising in Internet Television. He started the massively popular Pseudo.com. The site had a bunch of different channels each dedicated to a specific subculture; hip hop, skating etc.

This made him enough money to start his next social experiment: Quiet Hotel, an underground bunker in New York where 100 people lived in separate pods under constant video surveillance on the internet. It was shut down after 30 days, after which Harris embarked on a more intimate experiment. He wired his whole flat with cameras and microphones and broadcast his, and his girlfriend’s, every move on the website weliveinpublic.com. The experiment ended in failure and bankruptcy.

The opening was very strong. We see Josh Harris address the camera as his mother. Slowly we discover that his mum is sick and these are Josh’s final words to her. He doesn’t seem to take it too seriously, making jokes etc. We zoom back and the video is being played on YouTube. This is a case when the showy editing works well. When done well it becomes a way to develop the character of Josh Harris. Unfortunately the flashy editing is mostly obtrusive and jarring. There is a lot of pop music used on the soundtrack, much of which could have been removed.

Josh Harris must be a documentarian’s dream subject. He’s intelligent, unabashed, enigmatic and never entirely honest. He is fascinating to watch. Although he comes off as arrogant, cold, egotistical and eccentric, I found him endearing in a weird way due to his persistence, passion and integrity. Harris didn’t go bankrupt from blowing all his money on booze and hookers, but rather he used the money for his ultimate social experiment/artwork. Whether or not his art has any merit, or whether he is even an artist at all, is debatable. But what isn’t, are his predictions about the way the Internet would be used.

I also felt the end dragged on for a bit too long. I understand why it was there, so that we can follow Josh Harris right up until the date the film was released, but his two major experiments were made more interesting by observing them in their context. Enough time hadn’t passed for us to properly assess Harris as the apple farmer. It may have been better to cut all that out and have the film just be about the two experiments and his rise to fame, or perhaps waiting several years may have afforded the film context with which it could have benefited.

All in all, “We Live in Public” is very fascinating, and a great documentation of the birth of the Internet, structured around the rise and fall story of an eccentric genius/madman.

Top 5 Things About “We Live in Public”

5. Hotel Quiet

4. weliveinpublic.com

3. Ondi Timoner’s extraordinary access.

2. ‘Goodbye Mom’

1. Josh Harris

8/10