"Over the course of three years, filmmaker Meghan Eckman tracked the comings and goings of a solitary parking lot in Charlottesville, Va., chronicling the lives of the attendants who were working there. This inspiring documentary is the result. Hanging tough as they navigate the range of human emotion -- from hope to frustration, from a sense of limitless possibilities to stagnation -- the film's subjects embody the pursuit of the American Dream."
4 Stars
The Parking Lot Movie follows the grueling, nay, harrowing plight of a group of rag-tag societal misfits who utilize their unique positions as guardians of the Corner Parking Lot as an opportunity to sternly, but justly, maintain cosmic order in a world teetering on the edge of oblivion.
But seriously though, this movie is fucking brilliant, an all too rare tribute to the everyman. It starts out as a quirky documentary about the different personalizes and societal perceptions held by a group of guys who are all bound together one thing, their job as booth workers at a pay parking lot in Charlottesville, Virginia. But it eventually develops into a more substantial social commentary on our class system and the odd personas people can take on when they’re behind the wheel of a car. We get to see firsthand how some of us can get almost lost in a sense of entitlement just because we’re driving a vehicle with four wheels. And sometimes, unfortunately, that entitlement manifests itself into a way of treating other people that’s dismissive and, to some extent, cruel.
Now, don’t get me wrong, this movie isn’t sad on any level. Well, I take that back, maybe on some level. But the dry wit and sarcastic remarks that the attendants make about (and sometimes directly to the face of) their vehicle driving brethren are what makes the movie worth watching. They are more than forthcoming with their personal opinions about the drivers they do battle with on a daily basis. Through listening to the attendants express their own existential crises, neuroses, and even a little bit of psychoses, you quickly become a staunch admirer of the mental and moral fortitude it takes to really endure this job.
You can’t help it, some people are just worthless bags of douche and the guys that are able to put up with them are much better men than I. Go ahead, play that sad, pathetic ASPCA TV commercial with Sarah McLaughlin and the unwanted puppies as many times as you want in an effort to get me to be a better person. It probably won’t do much. But you make me watch this flick and you can be damn sure I’m gonna make the effort to be nicer to my parking lot attendant.
1 comments:
Damn, when someone does it better, they just do it better. Here is another commentary I found about the movie:
"The Parking Lot Movie is a documentary about a singular parking lot in Charlottesville, Virginia. The film follows a select group of parking lot attendants and their strange rite of passage. The eccentric brotherhood of attendants consist of grad students, overeducated philosophers, surly artists, middle-age slackers and more. This self-described "ragtag group of fractured poets" prefer skateboards and bicycles to cars and have at best a tolerant contempt for the people they serve. That's not to say they don't care about anything. They hang out at the lot even in their spare time, shooting the breeze or playing a spirited game of "flip cone," just because...they like it there. They conduct their own private "war" against the elites, the pretentious and obnoxious customers who park their BMWs, Hummers, Suburbans and other vehicles. They study the art of doing nothing and the knack of getting even with rude, SUV-driving dolts who treat them like inferior beings. The gradual devolution from enthusiasm to resentment in the psyches of guys self-aware enough to notice it is an interesting process; in an attempt to distract themselves from the rapidly mounting bitterness, the attendants amuse themselves any way they can-stenciling random messages on the parking gate, writing songs, even dancing for tips. Through interviews with former attendants who have moved on - we see that their time at the lot has clearly provided rites of passage and afforded them Zen-like perspective. As one parking attendant laments, "We had it all in a world that had nothing to offer us." If the intersection between the status quo and the quest for freedom is their ultimate challenge, could a slab of asphalt be an emotional way station for The American Dream?"
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