Chain

DIR: Jem Cohen | USA | 2003 | 99min

SHOWTIMES:
Tues. Sept. 28 | 7:15pm | Granville 7 Cinema, Theatre 2
Wed. Sept 29 | 1:40pm | Granville 7 Cinema, Theatre 5

A moving and challenging fictional film from experimental filmmaker Jem Cohen, Chain interweaves and contrasts the stories of two women experiencing very different lows that corporate America has to offer. The first woman is a mid-level Japanese executive sent, and essentially stranded by her company, to research theme parks. Her life is an endless stream of cookie-cutter hotel rooms. The second woman is homeless, spending her days in the warm shelter of different malls and creating a video-letter for her sister and mother that may or may not get sent. Both women narrate portions of the film, offering observations - some delicately poetic, some sharp and devastating - about American culture as they experience it.

Shot over a number of months in cities all over the world, Cohen's footage is remarkable in its total lack of regional differentiation. If you look really hard, you may catch a couple of shots from his trip to Vancouver but, for Cohen, all of America is becoming mono-coded - mall, mcdonalds, mall, walmart, mall, disneyland, mall - and it's taking the rest of the world with it. Though the film has a scripted narrative, the haunting 16mm images are largely documentary in feel, capturing the bleakness of the American landscape with laser precision.