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Human beings are endlessly fascinating creatures. This non-fiction feature starts off with a clip of a home movie of a group of suburban kids in Encino, CA, putting on an impromptu play in front of a group of their parents. It’s a little silly, not really that interesting and definitely homemade. You see the grown-up versions of these kids interviewed now, reflecting on what it was like to make some of the movies they made and just when you think this film is going to be a weird little picture about some goofy kids playing with a camera, you see part of a movie they made of Nazis killing a concentration camp victim. “Put the Camera on Me” isn’t as heavy as that scene might imply, but it’s an engrossing look into the lives of this small group of kids who were obsessed with making short films, their leader, pre-adolescent director Darren Stein, and the power dynamics that drove them.
The longer the film goes on— the more interviews you hear and home movies you see—the more engrossing it is. What could’ve been an obscure, self-indulgent, throwaway movie turns out to be a fascinating portrait of childhood and the intersection where fantasy and reality collide. There are some very adult themes dealt with, but never in a downbeat or heavy-handed way. It’s always interesting, disarmingly innocent and usually very, very funny. This is the kind of film that can really benefit from a DVD release since it initially only played at a few small festivals. It deserves a much bigger audience. —Kristopher Monroe