Died Young Stayed Pretty
Director: Eileen Yaghoobian
Classification: 14A
Rating: ****

Died Young Stayed Pretty is Canadian filmmaker Eileen Yaghoobian’s first full-length creation, and it is as much a work of quirky art as a lot of her subject matter is.

Yaghoobian’s 94-minute documentary is subtitled A Movie About Rock Posters! She examines the underground world of poster art by mixing plenty of examples of their work with lots of interviews of the artists, who take great pride in being outside the mainstream.

Several artists compare what they do to punk rock: “Art to destroy other art.” Using silkscreening and photocopying as part of their arsenal, they frequently take pop-culture images, mangle them to make their own comment on the mainstream, staple them on lampposts, and tell you about a coming rock concert at the same time.

Some of these people come off as thoughtful social observers, some come off as more-alternative-than-thou elitists. Several of the artists interviewed seem like the type of people who would pledge allegiance to a band — until that band became popular. Then they’d accuse the band of selling out.

Yaghoobian does very little editing of the footage, so what we get is raw and occasionally delightfully unfocused, just like real life. But sometimes, it’s just unfocused. Shots of the posters often move so quickly and are so tight, we don’t get an appreciation for the artwork as a whole.

Part of the appeal of Died Young Stayed Pretty is the odd, original music by Mark Greenberg, which enhances Yaghoobian’s filmmaking approach.