'Secret Mall Apartment' A Review

Secret Mall Apartment is a documentary about Providence, RI artist Michael Townsend that uses the titular 'project' as a casual focus point. Through talking head interviews, archival footage, and footage shot by Townsend his art practice, within the mall and without, is explored.

The title is kind of a misnomer as this is very much a portrait of an artist, the other 7 artists that worked with Townsend during this period on various projects don't say much and aren't featured much(which is a shame). Some of the ideas in the film are interesting, the SMA and how the group put it together is cool. But as a whole there seems to be little no point or thesis, the film meanders and flits from subject to subject- municipal history, urban development, gentrification, commercialism, art- but never settles on any. There's no real insight or analysis from the participants and Townsend is overly featured and seems incapable of any kind of self reflection. He's an interesting subject, charming and driven but clearly single-minded, obsessive, and selfish but director Jeremy Workman seems overly enamored by him and there's no attempt at really delving into his character or motivations, the feeling is very much only 'wow, isn't this cool? how cool is this!' which makes the 90 minute run time seem long.

There are some other undeveloped threads that irk- white privilege generally, RISD and its socioeconomic position, Townsend's relationship with his "team" who are all significantly younger, former students, and 'work' for him for free. Some of this is feinted at but not really interrogated. The one person of color, a city official, featured in the film says towards the end basically "who cares?" and that's certainly a valid question the film struggles to answer.

The secret mall apartment is a cool story, there's a good movie in here, but as is it feels like a shallow fluff piece that postures at profound.

Currently in theaters.

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