Blair Loveday
When I first saw the subject of David Farrier’s Mister Organ I knew he was pursuing a story about a clamper that got weird.
That was about it. When I heard a documentary was coming I figured it had to be something intense because David Farrier wasn’t going to pursue a boring story.
Well I was right and this doco went places I did not expect.
The best way to enjoy this documentary is to go in as blind as possible.
If you want to enjoy it the way you should then I will just say it is an incredible story. The places it goes and how it affects David is insane. Just go watch this movie as soon as you can. If you need more convincing then read on.
David Farrier’s Mister Organ starts with a story about sketchy clamping.
An old antique store in Auckland has the owner clamping anyone that parks in her parking spots illegally. When people return to their cars a man demands a high fee to release the car. This alone could make an interesting story about the clamping and legality of it in New Zealand. But this story gets weird fast.
After David brings light to it in a story it goes to parliament and some drama takes place.
When the antique story closed David grabbed a sign from the skip out back for a keepsake. One day the signs go missing, then David is pulled into court and is expected to return the signs, but of course they were lost. David suspects it is these strange people, but he loses his court case for stealing, and so he digs more into the people involved.
The ‘Mister Organ’ that the documentary is named after is a fascinating individual with a criminal history. With a personality that can flip on a dime, his attitude towards the documentary can go from intrigued to totally uninterested. The more David tries to understand this strange man and the woman that owned the antique store, the more insidious acts take place.
At one stage Mister Organ hands David Farrier a key to David’s own house. The way he tries to manipulate conversations, and harasses David is next level. How he speaks and twists any version of the truth is truly mind boggling.
What the documentary shows is a journalist who is coming to terms with a subject that is messing with David’s own mind, as he falls deeper down the rabbit hole that is this man’s life.
On paper this should absolutely not work.
A documentary about a man who does some clamping should be pretty bland, but my god it is insane.
The takeaways from this film touches on so much about how anyone can be manipulated and people that can seem nice enough can be intensely crafty using just their words.
Watch David Farrier’s Mister Organ, like, now. Seriously, it is an intense documentary that has David Farrier as much the subject by the end as much as Mister Organ is.
