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XANDER AND MOTHER JOAN

By Joshua Grover-David Patterson | August 19, 2004

Think back to high school.

Sometimes, you had to do a report. Book report. Science report. Some kind of report.

And then the teacher turned, looked at the class, and said, “And you’ll be doing it on video.”

As near as I can tell, that was the genesis of this video.

I say video because it is not a film. It’s shot on video. I suppose it’s a documentary, but what the documentary is supposed to be about is pretty unclear.

Is it about Xander, the iguana? Is it about Joan, the “mother” of the iguana? I couldn’t say.

The film is presented like so: The camera looks at Xander. The camera looks at Joan. Someone behind the camera asks a question, and Joan answers it.

Perhaps the documentary is meant to examine Joan as something of a “character.” Her hair is sort of bushy, and she likes to kiss Xander, in the affectionate way one might kiss a puppy or a kitten.

Perhaps that’s the gag – the replacing of the “cat lady” with the “iguana lady.”

Perhaps the person behind the camera respects how much Joan loves her pet. Perhaps the person behind the camera is creeped out by it. There’s no indication of what the audience is supposed to take out of this film.

Which only goes to show – don’t start your report the night before it’s due.

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