Chi Girl

This is a mockumentary about a guy, a girl, her ex and his camera. A guy arrives in Chicago to make a great documentary but soon finds a complete lack of anything interesting to shoot. Instead Randy meets up with Heather Green, a fairly annoying, slightly strange writer for an underground Chicago paper. She has a weird theory that "any woman could pick up on any guy and get them to come home with her, because men were... yeah stupid." And Randy, stuck for a better idea, decides to film her trying to prove it.

Chi Girl is a difficult film to get into at first. The amateurish style has been upped by shooting everything in one take using natural lighting. The character of Heather Green is the kind of whining, pathetic person who is a self-defeatist and it's easy to be annoyed by her. As Randy, and the film, follow her, we are introduced to her friends and we watch half-cringing, half-gaping as she tries in vain to pick up various men. Then Randy discovers she is actually stalking an ex-boyfriend and our perceptions change.

The atmosphere is reminiscent of Woody Allen: the jazz score and occasional monologues over random city images. The central theme is of sexual paranoia. But where Chi Girl deviates is in the change, not of Heather, but of Randy which paints a masterly portrait of obsession.

Chi Girl is yet another example of the guerilla film-making approach. However, unlike many others, it manages to be both strangely compelling and scarily familiar.