I saw this film in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die and that was a very good reason to watch this for me, but I saw a critics review give it a low rating which I found a little surprising, but I was still going to watch it and see if it deserved some kind of recommendation, from debuting director Jim McBride (The Big Easy). Basically this is a realistic spoof documentary about a man living on his own documenting his life every day and almost every hour, while filming himself David Holzman (L.M. Kit Carson) is discovering important things about himself. While he is filming himself, detailing every major or minor thing that has happened during a day and asking questions about himself and the world, he is causing some problems in whatever personal life he has, including his girlfriend walking out on him. Every scene of this film is from the perspective of the camera that he uses, we see him using it in some photographs as well, he uses it a lot in his own house, and he is not bothered what people think as he takes it everywhere with him, often using interesting alternative angles to capture his movement. It is towards the end of the film though that he questions his sanity and his reason for beginning his film diary in the first place, he knows that he is creating problems for his life and that it would be a greater benefit for himself and everyone to end the film entirely, and get rid of it afterwards, so he does. Also starring Eileen Dietz as Penny Wohl, Lorenzo Mans as Pepe, Louise Levine as Sandra, Michel Lévine as Sandra's Boy Friend and Robert Lesser as Max - Penny's agent. I can see it is clearly an experimental film and it was considered rather daring for its time, I guess the reason the critics give it a low rating now is because it seems a little dated, but you can't argue that has given some directors good ideas for camera movement and angles in future filmmaking, and it has a good performance by Carson who is fascinating filming himself, overall I agree it is a satire film to be seen. Worth watching!
Review of David Holzman's Diary
