Amos Poe is most well known for his association with the No Wave film movement of the early 80s, and this minimalist, low-budget, documentary film shares much of that movement's guerrilla film-making aesthetics. In more recent times, Poe has also become part of the Remodernist film movement and this documentary, with its agitated handheld camera pans and frenetic editing, certainly meets the remodernist criteria of a "stripped down, minimal, lyrical, punk kind of filmmaking".
Most, if not all of the footage, appears to have been captured on the L train line. This line is part of the New York City Subway system and it moves hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers daily between Eighth Avenue in Chelsea, Manhattan, and Rockaway Parkway in Canarsie, Brooklyn. Poe's roving, stealthy, voyeuristic camera captures the continual movement and noise of New York City's Subway system. Devoid of any commentary, he flashes the passengers, the wall-to-wall adverts, the buskers and the graffiti in our faces in disconcerting fashion. As we begin to appreciate the complex and disorienting scale and diversity of the people, sights and sounds of the Subway system we reach an understanding of its hidden meaning and beauty.
This film effectively utilises the Japanese concepts of wabi-sabi (the beauty of imperfection) and mono no aware (the awareness of the transience of things and the bittersweet feelings that accompany their passing) and how they have the ability to show us the truth of existence.
Most, if not all of the footage, appears to have been captured on the L train line. This line is part of the New York City Subway system and it moves hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers daily between Eighth Avenue in Chelsea, Manhattan, and Rockaway Parkway in Canarsie, Brooklyn. Poe's roving, stealthy, voyeuristic camera captures the continual movement and noise of New York City's Subway system. Devoid of any commentary, he flashes the passengers, the wall-to-wall adverts, the buskers and the graffiti in our faces in disconcerting fashion. As we begin to appreciate the complex and disorienting scale and diversity of the people, sights and sounds of the Subway system we reach an understanding of its hidden meaning and beauty.
This film effectively utilises the Japanese concepts of wabi-sabi (the beauty of imperfection) and mono no aware (the awareness of the transience of things and the bittersweet feelings that accompany their passing) and how they have the ability to show us the truth of existence.
