Kim’s Video (2023)

Kim’s-Video-(2023)
Kim’s Video (2023)

Kim’s Video

Kim’s Video” actually trips over itself whilst trying to reach for a strange sort of profundity. This is such a pity because there is a remarkable story that is well hidden in this very annoying film. Kim’s Video actively operated from the ‘80s all the way to when it finally closed in the ‘00s while fostering the appreciation of Indie film. They strongly cajoled the notion of harping on art jerking legs, pardon the crudeness, over whether some of the VHS cassettes they were renting out were legal or not. For me, loving the form grew from working at video stores in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and I do feel sad that my children will never ever walk into Kim’s Video even vaguely hoping to discover something that could shock them and change their lives forever. Moreover, it’s curious how many former employees of Kim’s are artists now, including the brilliant Robert Greene (“Procession”), Sean Price Williams (“The Sweet East”), and Alex Ross Perry (“Listen Up Philip”) who all appear in this doc. Where will they learn what it means to work in a video store as a young director nowadays?

These all are, just as rightly put, ripe areas of focus in a film called “Kim’s Video”, but co-director David Redmon (who gets a joint credit with Ashley Sabin in this documentary), cannot get a handle on the story that he wants to pursue.

It’s almost as if they wanted to go for a more counter culture approach when showing the space itself and the people and it is more understandable now why it was in the NEXT program at Sundance rather than there being a million other documentaries But returning without fail and time after time to telling us about David’s story and not even about the store or it’s founder Yong-man Kim is a headache. Every single clip and sequence that you know David Redmon has narrated throughout the project gets tangled with Redmon’s personal thoughts trying to illustrate interviews with “dressings” that demonstrate his opinions the filmmaker should never attempt to do which is shove the narrative forward. That did not happen. He’s not Christ. David has nothing to do with David Bourla. He didn’t even try to look for a guy’s ear like in “Blue Velvet.” This is not someone who would play the markets in ‘Blow out’ or who would take the character and build thoughts in ‘The Conversation’ and, Please God, he did not have an Argo moment.

So who is David Redmon’s and what did he want from ‘Kim’s Video’? This is where it becomes complicated, and also interesting, because this is still where ‘Kim’s video’ begins. What is intriguing about it is how it failed at accomplishing its primary aim, changed, and went into the direction it is felt now.

In 2008, Kim made a shocking announcement on the closure of Mondo Kim’s, and the sale of the entire collection. He made a settlement with Salemi, Sicily, in which he was to try and re-establish the city as an artists’ hub that had been wrecked by an earthquake. Although further sales were made, it came with the disgrace that the collection was basically put out of sight and used for investment purposes only without any showing.

Redmon wonders how to ‘save’ the collection and feels the best way is to go to Salemi several times to meet politicians and other important people, pouring every Italian generalization in sight over everything. Not only does he take out Scorsese’s clips, he begins narrating that while he’s hiding behind someone who instructs him to wait under a bridge, this is a highway where “oh my god, this is where they kill such people,” and then there’s absolutely nothing.

In Salemi, it appears that there is a prevailing trend of Redmon and Sabin attempting to impose their directorial preferences on the events or potential events within the film rather than what is happening or what could be fascinating. It is as though they have watched so many movies at Kim’s Video that it became their goal and they attempted to fit the stars entirely into the square holes. Such technique results in uneven rhythm and veiling of the real plot of the movie. Sure, Kim’s Video is worth discussing, Kim’s Video’s desperate struggle for preservation is appealing but a good film would restrain from the haness of the film-maaker for crass sensationalism and aim at telling the whole story instead of violence and a haphazard scatter of clips for the sake of the directors putative intellect. Kim’s video generated millions of film fans, if not a couple of filmmakers with a movie that had the same name as the place. The film’s storyline and plot do not even come close to capturing the primary theme of why the site was so important, drowned out as it is by a single person’s disjointed narrative of attempting to explain it.

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