In 2016, New Zealand journalist David Farrier turned a small obsession into a major success his documentary Tickled, a deeply surprising look at the supposed sport of professional endurance tickling. What began as a quirky lifestyle article about a few online videos of young, athletic men being tied up and tickled turned into a personal journalistic quest that Farrier pursued through clippings and stolen identities, lawsuits, blackmail and physical threats, and a series of “Okay, seriously, what the hell?” Revelations. It’s a fascinating film, in part because the stakes are so low, and yet the rage of the shadowy figure behind it is so fleeting and outsized.
Farrier tackles a very similar story with his 2023 documentary Mr. Organ, now streaming on Netflix. It begins in much the same way: Farrier reports a small, bizarre story that comes to light: in this case, a parking attendant at a New Zealand antique store extorts $700 or more from any unwitting intruder who parks in the store’s parking lot. After Farrier’s 2016 report on the workshop became viral news – garnered so much attention and sparked so much outrage that New Zealand eventually passed a law limiting payouts for parking violations
“Journalist spends years talking to strange guy” sounds like a bizarre basis for a movie, but Mr. Organ is both fascinating and endlessly surprising Tickled is, for the same reasons. Farrier’s investigation leads down rabbit holes that no one could have predicted, starting with Organ’s past as… convicted yacht thief who claims to be a prince. As the film progresses, he discovers more and more strange details about the man, who gets wind of Farrier’s project and takes some decidedly alarming moves that are best discovered as the film progresses, with one jaw-dropping revelation after another.
But even these revelations (and the big questions they raise) are not the reason Mr. Organ is an endlessly debateable film, a perfect conversation starter to watch together. What makes the film such an uncomfortable experience is how close Farrier gets to his subject and how that affects him. It is a fundamental aspect of journalism that people reporting the news do not become part of it, but rather remain detached and objective. But Farrier becomes something of a reluctant friend and sounding board for Organ, who knows he’s making a documentary and goes along with it. Sometimes he participates, sometimes he tries to silence the matter, but he always tries to twist the narrative. “You probably would have been a really interesting person to get to know if you weren’t such a bitch,” he once tells Farrier on camera.
Mr. Organ becomes a shockingly unpleasant experience as Farrier interviews Michael Organ’s former friends and roommates. He is repeatedly told that the man has some kind of dark power to creep into people’s lives and destroy them. At the same time, Organ seems to be trying to do the same with Farrier. At one point, during Organ’s long, rambling phone conversation, Farrier mutes himself to talk to the camera about how endlessly boring the man is. In another, he films himself breaking down and crying on camera while talking about how trapped he feels by the project and how he finds organ numbing and inescapable.
“I don’t really understand why he upsets me so much,” Farrier tells a stranger on the phone. “I can spend time with a lot of idiots and a lot of people who are boring, but I can’t be in the room with him. I’m trapped. It’s a strange situation for me because I’m trapped with him […] Because I have to make a film, right? So there’s no way out.”
This personal dynamic – the sense that Farrier has made himself and his reaction to his subject part of his story, and that he has abandoned any form of objectivity to instead express only his frustration and disgust with the man – is an unusual direction for a documentary to take, and it’s one that invites much analysis and discussion. By the end of the film, Farrier’s obvious dislike of Organ pushes him to try increasingly direct tactics to uncover the truth about the man, including in some particularly sensitive scenes in which he confronts members of Organ’s family who understandably object to it have had someone show up on their page unannounced, sent out onto their porch with a camera and trying to question them about their scammer relative.
That and many other things about it Mr. Organ, could divert Farrier’s sympathies. But they never shift to organ itself, which – much like the gradually revealed theme of Tickled – seems like a monstrous person best kept at a distance. Farriers don’t have that luxury. In both films he takes a lot of risks – narrative risks when it comes to making documentaries with a distinctive personality and approach different from anyone else making documentaries right now, and personal risks when it comes to that , angering people whose history shows them to be dangerous ways of flogging.
In both films, Farrier pokes bears so we don’t have to, letting us watch from a safe distance. Neither of them is an entirely pleasant experience, but both are fascinating, uncomfortable, and the kind of films you’ll probably want to pass on to someone else immediately after watching, with a hearty, “Okay, you.” have to watch this – you won’t believe where this story goes.”
Mr. Organ is streaming on Netflix. Tickledwhich is also well worth seeing and can be viewed for free with advertising turned on FuboPlex and Vuduand can be rented below Amazon, Google Playand other digital platforms.