movie a day
Jan 3rd
MEMPHIS
In
Tim Sutton’s MEMPHIS, a brash and talented musician on the cusp of
greatness sojourns to the titular city to capture the creative
inspiration needed to finish his much anticipated debut album- instead,
he wanders aimlessly on a Dantean journey of degradation through its
many levels and inhabitants in an crisis of existentialism and the
crushing weight of genius, the artistic process, and failed expectation.
This
is a masterwork of Transcendentalist poetic mythos and transcendent
filmmaking- the lyrical visual aesthetic and experimental narrative
proves both melancholic and unforgettable. Indeed, Sutton blurs the line
between experimental narrative and documentary with breathtaking
bravado, and a cast of non-actors and improvisational soliloquies
anchored by the magnetic and mesmerizing performance of real-life
bluesman and poet Willis Earl Beal.
Sutton’s
Memphis is a city- and an ideal- in decay. The dystopian Southern limbo
languidly showcases abandoned infrastructure and broken human beings
back-dropped by nature reclaiming the sullied landscape. Nameless
children wisp about wordlessly through the city decay bearing silent
angelic witness to the stagnation. Abandoned cars and broken glass
bemoan the apocalyptic allure of evangelical and chemical escapism.
Throughout it all, our hero meanders- a soul singing Whitman of the
modern age.
MEMPHIS
is a near-wordless masterpiece of the highest order. It is that rarest
of things- the bit of cinematic art that truly transcends the ability to
explain- it must, ultimately, be experienced.
-Jack Hanley
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