It's like Bring Your Audience to Work Day

I had the great privilege to speak with the director, Jon Foy, for about a half hour after the film. To use a phrase of his, the film "exudes fun." Though he was describing the True/False Festival in general, I think it is appropriately applicable. This film will make you feel like a detective, minus the pipe and nerdy sidekick.

Is This Real Life? Resurrect Dead: A Modern Day Arthur Conan Doyle Novel


Film: Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles (2011)

[Documentary]

“TOYNBEE IDEA/ IN MOVIE 2001/ RESURRECT DEAD/ ON PLANET JUPITER” reads more like a text from last night than a call to action. But as Jon Foy illustrates with his documentary Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles, those cryptic words are a window to a life pleading for recognition yet thriving on anonymity.

With the rising popularity of street art and names such as Banksy entering the vernacular, Resurrect Dead is a timely, masterfully-woven investigation of a phenomenon that has baffled those who noticed it for nearly 30 years: linoleum tiles embedded in streets from Philadelphia to St. Louis, inscribed with the curious message. Reminiscent of — but about 10 times more enlightened than — Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010), Foy’s directorial debut makes audiences honorary members in an against-all-odds manhunt. It’s a pursuit that often feels Sisyphean and requires a tireless leader, but Justin Duerr is just the man for the job.

“The unstoppable force,” as he is called, Duerr met Foy accidentally in 2000, when Foy prank called Duerr’s roommate, posing as the man behind the tiles.

Justin’s interest is deep and well documented. He has photographed and kept a log of every location where he’s spotted a tile, and employed his former girlfriend as secretary of the search. To say he’s obsessed is not an understatement.

“It’s not an art project put together by some art students,” Duerr says. “It’s real.”

It took a few years, but as more self-proclaimed sleuths and puzzled passersby like Justin began to congregate on Internet forums dedicated to the Toynbee mystery, theories were tossed around left and right, ranging all the way from Pink Floyd to the Bible to “messages from space.” The crazy part: it was a little but of all three … that is, if you replace Pink Floyd with Led Zeppelin and think “Stairway to Heaven.”

These message boards are how Duerr and co-detectives Colin Smith and Steve Weinik found each other and began an all-consuming journey to solve the mystery of the Toynbee tiler.

The list of “suspects” reads like a mafia line up, complete with celebrity and potential culprit’s epithets preceding their less interesting legal names. There’s Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet and a man named James Morasco. And there’s Severino “Sevy” Verna and Julius “Railroad Joe” Piroli. Those last two are the current and former residents of a south Philly address that was found on the only tile to make it out of the states and into South America.

The house on S. 7th Street exudes that Boo Radley kind of reclusiveness — complete with double padlocks on the front door — and from neighbors’ descriptions, so does the man inside. Whether he’s dropping tiles across the Midwest and east coast — vis-à-vis toys in a tree hollow — is unsure, but what is clear is Justin’s connection to Sevy, a man locals call quiet, a “birdman,” but very intelligent — a lot like Justin in his high school days.

Though Foy is new to the documentary scene, and feels he got lucky with the way the search unraveled, there is nothing amateurish about the film’s narrative. Practically dripping with suspense, Resurrect Dead puts you on an investigative rollercoaster — to use a tired but completely appropriate cliché. Foy suggests the mystery is a MacGuffin (a device to move along the plot, but secondary to the central focus). While that is debatable, Foy expertly employs another Hitchcockian technique — pure cinema — and allows the story’s absurdities to speak for themselves.

Whether perched over Justin’s shoulder or at his feet, Foy’s camera and the viewer’s perspective are like a fourth set of eyes poring over the documents and sifting through the theories. As each lead takes the guys down a new path, the buildup of discovery and the letdown of each dead end are palpable. These thrills and chills are due in part to Foy’s original score, which evokes an eerie sense of paranoia, but the real drama lies in the clues (clandestine radio broadcasts, a screenplay and hijacked TV news) that’ll have your mouth hanging agape in disbelief and grinning at the inescapable fact that it’s all true.

A definite must-see at home if not at the festival, Resurrect Dead, is an exciting ride that is sure to grip audiences and hang on until the credits roll.