Secret Mall Apartment will be in select theaters March 23
Cough, cough, I think I got too much sap from the very sappy Secret Mall Apartment, coming out soon. I was so overjoyed hearing about this coming out as a doc, but that really waned over time from first reading about it, to trailer, to the film itself. Been following the story since bfore hearing about the doc getting made.
Now, who doesn't want to hear about an artist collective living out in a secret mall apartment with a PS2 and how they did it? Not me. As the film delves more into the main man behind it, his art and the group's art reminding us of national tragedies. Listen, we're not saying it isn't touching, perhaps too much so, it's just not what I wanted from my doc about people living like some bizarre sitcom in a mall.
What was the more interspersing part, put in the background, though holding the title of the film is the construction and life inside a secret living space in the mall. We have footage of the efforts of the art collective chugging cinder-blocks and furniture through an emergency door. We have a reconstruction of the space in a studio and out of wood as a model that showed us the detail of it. We at least have that.
Then the rest of the film is learning about the artists and the pretty selfless acts of art they did expressing the sadness they had with national tragedies and doing tape art murals for sick children. So, damn, touching.
The doc, in some ways just wasn't what I wanted. I mainly was in it for the way they made their hideout and stories from the mall apartment, which seem parted out too much.
The only other criticism I can really give is the seemingly one paragraph section of the film going over how mall security left most the artist collective alone because they're all white. Instead, of going more into it or have more incidents to report, it's like they added it just to be annoyingly woke about it. There's no footage in the doc of other people being hassled by mall security or anything specific, so I'm not sure why they included it at all.
Spoiler, the only other incident I love was that the PS2 was stolen from the apartment from possibly mall security and the main artist thought it might be used as evidence as PS2 memory cards have time stamps for when you last played a game. Bro, it's mall security, they probably just wanted a PS2.
If you want more of a cringy sweet movie with a little bit of tension, then this one is for you.
Screener provided by publisher for review purposes.
