Secret Mall Apartment

Secret Mall Apartment – a seriously fun film – commits in kind.

“Secret Mall Apartment” makes a compelling case that the project reverberates through the lives of the artists, and maybe even the city, to this day.

The film works as a movie thanks to the sly way it’s been put together.

This is a delightful, thought-provoking movie that’s about a lot of things at the same time. It’ll make you see the world with fresh eyes, and probably wonder why there isn’t more art in it.

Secret Mall Apartment shines the light on the kind of art – and the kinds of artists – who work beyond the limelight, pushing both the law and the very definition of “art” itself to their limits.

A thoughtful celebration of the DIY artistry behind that experiment, but only a so-so investigation of it.

A puckish tale of protest, ingenuity, and performance art seeping into real life thanks to eight hometown heroes who clearly understood how to blend audacious social commentary with a good time.

Workman does more than focus on the apartment, however, grounding its genesis in the gentrification that was overtaking the city...and broadening his scope by highlighting the public art projects the collective created at the time...

Maybe the film won't dissuade a city from building a shrine to materialism that...fills our lives with meaningless products. However, it may convince the rest of us that poking the bear of corporate greed and gentrification will always be meaningful.

It’s tough to watch Secret Mall Apartment and not fall under the spell of Townsend and his earnest collaborators, possessing as they do the righteous conviction of young people in a bygone era who are quite certain that they’re going to change the world.