Details from IMDB:
Secret Mall Apartment
- 2024
- 1h 32m
In 2003, eight Rhode Islanders created a secret apartment inside a busy mall and lived there for four years, filming everything along the way. Far more than a prank, the secret apartment became a deeply meaningful place for all involved.
Initial Thoughts:
I had head about this documentary from Rebecca Frost and as I had seen “Roofman” just the week before (which is also about a hidden space that someone lives in without a store’s knowledge) and I was home because of a snowstorm, I decided to give it a watch.
Main Points:
I have always enjoyed documentaries and as I had seen 4 fiction movies before, I was also ready for a change of pace. It took me a while, as I was getting stone, but I finally decided to spend the $5.00 on this from Apple+ and give it a watch last night. I don’t know a lot about the East coast of the US and I knew next to nothing about Providence, Rhode Island so I appreciated how this documentary explained how developers split the city in two and pissed a lot of people off by building this gigantic mall with prices so high that many people who lived in the city couldn’t afford to shop there. They also demolished a large number of historic buildings with no regard to where people would go or their historical significance.
The film shows well the effects of both capitalism and gentrification on Providence, the city was forever changed and despite people voicing their displeasure not one but two malls were built. The movie is, however, mostly about 8 artists that decided to claim an unused area of the mall for themselves, making the secret apartment. While there is a voyeur type thrill watching them make this space into an apartment (avoiding security hundreds of times), what is most enjoyable about the film is getting to know each of the artists. Michael Townsend is the “leader” of the group as he found the spot in the mall but we quickly see that his vision of what art is (essentially anything creative) and how to use it to spread joy to those who need it most is wonderful to watch. I agree completely with what he said that while you can’t change the world overnight, if you can just make a few people around you happier, than hopefully that happiness will spread and you can make small pockets of the world better. The other thing that worked really well here is that all 8 of them were filming for a lot of the time during this 4 year period, so we get to watch all the footage of the mall and the secret apartment.
Final Thoughts:
I loved how at the end they put up what happened to Mike (he was the only one ever caught in the secret room) and how the mall eventually fell into decline and is now considering residential apartments in the mall! So what the group did with their apartment could eventually become reality, a great example of art imitating life. They also make clear that they could never have done this if everyone wasn’t white, white privilege is real and shown very clearly when they have a run in with a security guard one night (while moving cinder blocks to the apartment). I quite enjoyed this documentary but would have liked to have seen more of what went on in the apartment, people slept there, ate there and had parts of their lives there, but we only get short (mostly dark) clips, perhaps the rest of the footage was no good. I give this a solid 8 out of 10 and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys documentaries and wonders how modern art could look, along with how being a good person and making the world brighter is a reward in itself (and yes I believe in karma). This would be a great documentary to show during an art class or even an ethics course. There is a some coarse language, so I would say ages 14+, so not for young kids. It was not too long and I would have liked to see more, which is not something I say a lot for movies.