David Farrier’s been on the cutting edge of bizarre documentaries for years. He’s made a name for himself telling off-beat stories as a journalist, and his directorial debut, Tickled, is what got me seriously interested in documentary filmmaking back in high school, going beyond the kinds of straightforward storytelling I’d seen in educational videos at school and peeling back the most bizarre layers of society. He unearths the strangest parts of our world, honing in on hyper-specific topics to tell tales of greed, narcissism, and the truly bizarre, with a knack for narration and featuring himself in his stories that make things all the more compelling — and in some cases, terrifying.

All of those things are true of Mister Organ, Farrier’s latest foray into documentary filmmaking. What began as a simple investigation into a bizarre string of events surrounding an antiques dealer in Ponsonby, New Zealand spirals quickly out of control into a film nearly ten years in the making for Farrier, who found himself tangled in a web created by the film’s titular subject, one Michael Organ. The film attempts to track Organ’s history and involvement with the initial antiques incident, though Farrier quickly realizes that he’s gotten more than he bargained for, eventually realizing that he’s dealing with a truly unsettling character.

Whereas Farrier’s other work focused on larger phenomena, including competitive tickling and the world of dark tourism, Mister Organ sets its sights on one particular individual, whose duplicitous nature proves more than fruitful for a ninety-minute documentary. It might seem odd that the film would screen somewhere like the Overlook Film Festival, where I had the pleasure of seeing this film, but twenty minutes of dealing with the enigma that is Michael Organ is far more terrifying than any other horror film I screened at the festival, something so viscerally real that I fear I may one day cross paths with someone so similarly deluded.

Destruction Is Everywhere in ‘Mister Organ’
Image via Drafthouse Films

Because, you see, Mister Organ illustrates the path of human destruction its subject leaves in his wake, from boat thefts to abuse of former flatmates and all kinds of mess in between. It’s very clear that the film is just as unsettling, if not more so, than Farrier’s work on Tickled, as his research into Organ leads him so close to the heart of the matter that he ends up conversing regularly with the man himself. He appears on camera numerous times, almost happy to monologue at length about how much Farrier has seriously wronged him after writing a series of articles on his involvement with Bashford Antiques — accusations which amount to actual court proceedings, things that continue to damage Farrier’s life even outside the confines of the film.

The audience’s concern for Farrier’s wellbeing, as his signature stance as a kind of star in his own project creates a deeply unsettling predicament, is primarily what fuels the film – or at least, fuels it for me, as the experience of watching what can only be described as a deluded narcissist chip away at Farrier made me want to melt into the floor. Organ’s personality is the kind of self-obsessed arrogance that’s almost too tough to watch, because you know there are lesser versions of him scattered throughout the planet; people who can and will use their words to damage and betray and twist arms to get exactly what they want, when they want it, even if that means somehow stealing a key to someone’s house.

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‘Mister Organ’ Unsteadies Even Farrier
Image via Drafthouse Films

Farrier’s work has always been spectacular at pulling up a piece of your skin and crawling underneath it, nestling inside your veins like some kind of parasite. That feeling of unsteadiness, of disgust paired with morbid curiosity, is what I adore so much about his style; not often is it that you see documentaries of that type. They freak you out so much that they feel right at home at a horror festival. But here, in Mister Organ, it’s almost too much, and l can only imagine the grueling psychological terror Farrier must have endured having to constantly converse with Organ, often for hours on end, in conversations that go absolutely nowhere. Talk of fake royal bloodlines and perceived notions of superiority feels like scratching at your own skin with a Bowie knife, and even with the handful of laughs peppered into the story, you leave the theater with a thin veil of slime covering your skin, as though Organ’s words could reach through the screen and make you feel as wound up as Farrier clearly is on-screen.

After a certain point, the film starts to feel repetitive, like the narrative has stalled out or hit a wall when it becomes increasingly obvious that Farrier isn’t going to find out all that much about Organ’s life. It lacks as much of a sense of finality as the director’s ever come to with his work, but I can’t really blame him for that as a filmmaker — there’s just no way to crack this lunatic, and his conversations with Organ spiral into deluded nothingness time and time again, despite his best efforts to get anything out of him. At the Overlook screening, Farrier described how difficult it was to cut the film together as a sensible narrative, having to revisit painful, soul-sucking conversations over and over to make some sort of sense of what was going on, and whatever sits on the cutting room floor must be even more nonsensical than what made it into the film, which delivers plenty of psychic damage as it is.

Mister Organ, ultimately, is brutal as all hell. Farrier’s achieved a kind of simulation with his narrative, mirroring the kind of psychological terrorism he underwent putting up with Organ to the point where I’d almost hesitate to recommend it to anyone, despite how much I’ve been shoving Dark Tourist at everyone I know for the past five years. It’s a long, hard ninety minutes, even with someone as charming as Farrier leading the charge, but that ultimately feels like the point — that minutes turn to hours with Michael Organ. Though narcissism isn’t really a crime, it’s still a disease, one that tangles itself into a complex web, leaching into everyone it can possibly touch, no matter how innocent.

Rating: B

The Big Picture

Mister Organ is a documentary that delves deep into the life of Michael Organ, a truly unsettling and narcissistic character. Documentary filmmaker David Farrier finds himself caught in a web of destruction as he uncovers Organ’s history and involvement in various troubling incidents. The film is brutal and psychologically terrifying, reflecting the narcissistic nature of its subject.

Mister Organ opens in theaters starting October 6.