Discovery European Fantastic Film Festival in Strasbourg 2023 (FEFFS), Kims Video is with The Last Video Store the second film of the selection to scream his love of video clubs and physical format. A haunting and inspiring documentary about this mythical collection of films, its drift to a small Sicilian village in mafia grip and the will of the directors to repatriate them...
Mythic video-store
Yongman Kim. This name may not tell you anything, but he was the leader of one of the world's most recognized video-stores: Kims Video. Regorging thousands and thousands of titles, including the darkest, esoteric and underground, this East Village rental store in Manhattan (and its few other branches) attracted masses of passionate cinemaphiles from 1987 to 2008. From Tarantino To the Coen brothers (who left behind a slate of more than $600 in late fees, according to the reports), the physical support crisis and the competition of the platforms and at all dematerialised are a major challenge.
« Any similar to fictional characters in this documentary is purely coincidental. »
Except that if the store closes, Kim remains determined to share his huge collection with an institution ready to showcase it such as a university or a media library... Set firm conditions such as ensuring access to former members and making this assortment of extraordinary feature films live, Kim ends up giving it to the Italian city of Salemi in Sicily. This is how the thousands of titles end up crossing the Atlantic towards Corleone family lands.
This is where the couple of directors David Redmon (the narrator) and Ashley Sabin begins their documentary history. Well decided to have access to these famous DVDs, they will fall from Charybde to Scylla: the untangled video club with the FBI due to the presence of many bootlegs, the departure of the collection in Sicily where no one seems to have access to it since, the storage of DVDs in deplorable conditions... What a disappointment for this catalog of priceless value. It takes little more than this couple of enthusiasts to get into a plane as a result of what remains of Kims Video. Between political disarray and mafia stories, they will find themselves plunged into a haletante race to find these hundreds of boxes piled up in a wet hangar.
Pop Cap
Resolutely pop, masturbated with constant humour and extracts of classic cinema (from Citizen Kane to Blue Velvet, passing through The Godfather In particular, Redmon illustrates his soul state, filming camera on his fist. With a striking nerve (he will not hesitate to force the entrance to the hangar where the films are stored, but also to shake the entire Sicilian political community around the village of Salemi), Redmon offers above all a communicative energy, determined but never furious. The naivety that infuses certain planes can sometimes leave a dreamer (notably a whole esoteric pan invoking a sort of pulsation). Videodrome- that attracts the director to these films), but whether she is faked or sincere she ends up becoming a real weapon for the narrator, protecting him against his often uncooperative interlocutors.
Rhythm of music Enrico Tilotta (received precisely around the hangar where the collection of Kims Video was stagnating), the documentary is a love letter to the cinema (both bis and classical) and to the physical support, while taking the turns of a real thriller taking from end to end. Fun mix of genres – we were talking about the thriller, we could talk about the tape film and the break film – Kims Video is above all a reflection on the tangible power of art. We will say no more, as the documentary gains to be discovered blank of as much information as possible...
Beautiful surprise that this Kims Video So, which proves, if necessary, the possible plasticity surrounding the art of the documentary. A feature film that makes you want to go back to its old VHS cabinets and take care of it...
[...] you have not yet had the chance to discover it, find out on the incredible documentary Kims video by Ashley Sabin and David Redmon), their collaboration is rather based on the common taste for [...]