Kim's Video

As I've said before, I wasn't a movie nerd as a kid, nor as a teenager. While I liked them, my taste was pretty mainstream. Getting access to the flicks I was interested in was as simple as going to my local Blockbuster. I didn't have to seek out a quirky little video shop staffed by colorful aficionados and get their recommendations to know I wanted to rent The Day After Tomorrow or Billy Madison. In fact, on the occasions my mom took me to the little hole in the wall next to the grocery store, I was frustrated at how few copies they had of movies I'd heard of. Sure, every now and then I'd find my way to Pi or Donnie Darko or the 1981 version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I always circled back to Bruce Almighty and The Core. Film didn't mean much to me yet, so I had little interest in expanding my horizons. I liked what I liked, and that was that.

As streaming has engulfed and reshaped the media distribution landscape, and has in turn failed to deliver on some of its core promises (cheaper than cable! ad free! everything always available!), nostalgia for these brick and mortar spaces has spiked. Pieces lamenting their loss have shown up with greater regularity, alongside a rising (re-)interest in physical media, and even attempts to recreate the magic contained in such shops. They represent not only a place to discover weird stuff that even the local arthouse cinema wouldn't touch, but somewhere to connect to your fellow film fans, to swap recommendations and reads on the plot, a home away from home. A classic example of a third place. Which is how I've come to have nostalgia for an experience I was in close proximity to, yet managed to miss out on.

Perhaps that's why I was drawn to this little doc about one such video store located in Manhattan, and the strange fate of its collection. It was another chance to live vicariously through some of its past employees, much as with Everything to Entertain You at last year's NHFF or hearing podcast hosts reminisce. And also to fill in the gaps of the mystery of the 55,000 tapes it boasted at close.

The story is pretty strange, raising a ton of questions whose answers you're excited to learn. Why did Kim select Salemi, Italy of all places as the recipient of his massive collection? What was the town's intention with the materials? What/who was to blame for the condition in which director David Redmon¹ found them? Why is everyone so tight-lipped about this footnote in their history from over a decade ago?

We ride along in a first-person POV as Redmon narrates and conducts the investigation, stopping every few minutes to directly relate the events or his thoughts to some movie, while showing the relevant scene. He chases leads and tries to push his way into the appropriate circles to connect with people who were involved with the collection's acquisition then, or "upkeep" now. As soon as suspicious connections begin to emerge, they hit a dead end: a government investigator dies, the mayor from the time gives Redmon the run around, Kim claims he doesn't have the authority to enforce the town's breach of the agreement. So much is left hanging in the air that had been deliberately raised.

Truth be told, Redmon doesn't seem to have any particular set of skills to help him in his quest. He's not able to get anything particularly meaty or meaningful out of anyone. No good sound bytes, no deeper truths, and certainly nothing about Kim's Video or its huge trove of tapes. People mostly appear annoyed by his presence, which makes sense: he acts pushy and entitled, repeating a handful of times that as a Kim's Video member he's supposed to be able to borrow the movies. He's so single-minded in his focus on ensuring the tapes survive that he completely forgets (or maybe just forgoes?) any opportunity to establish a relationship such that these people want to help him. His quest to figure out what happened and how to rectify things is noble, but that only gets you so far when you're viewed as an interloper.

As such, much of the doc lands as flailing. In trying to make it personal, it becomes somewhat narrow. He tries to establish the importance of Kim's through the lens of his own cinephilia, and eventually gets into a brief history of Kim's and its founder Yongman Kim. But everything feels so surface level, owing to his outsider status. While he was a member, it sounds like he arrived in NYC near the tail end of its heyday, and never worked there. Additionally, he features very few discussions with the people who did, instead choosing to focus mostly on his poking around Salemi and the eventual efforts to get the tapes out of there. Which could be fine, but he doesn't demonstrate much of an instinct for which comments and occurrences deserve a deeper dive. For example, why leave in Alex Ross Perry's comment that NYU offered to house the whole collection, only to never address or look into it? It's left woefully underdeveloped, with a weak question to Kim prompting a response expressing regret as the closest we get to an answer. The same goes for Redmon's poking around Salemi: every avenue he takes leads nowhere and gives us no deeper understanding of the situation past or present, causing the whole thing to feel like filler.

If you know the current status of the collection, then you know towards what all of this is building. I won't spoil what it is for those who don't, but suffice it to say that Redmon takes a more active role in looking after the movies. It's somewhat clever and quite compelling, although I do wish for that extra level of detail. Unfortunately, so little time is spent on the event itself that it feels far less significant than it truly is. Instead, we're treated to individual close ups of a handful of cutout masks of important filmmakers worn by his collaborators, and a later self-impressed recital of their names.

What emerges from all of this is a fairly dull portrait of what seems to have been a very important NYC institution for the slice of people who partook in it. Redmon's experience is centered so thoroughly that it minimizes and distracts from its subject matter, becoming more of a cataloging of his own obsession than highlighting what made this shop so unique and important as to justify this doc. In order to buy in, you have to already be on board with his premise, that this collection is important and meaningful, and understand why someone would be so dedicated to this cause. As it is, the doc doesn't do a great job of building that case and bringing you along for the ride.

All that being said, this doc is the reason for the ultimate fate of the collection, which may alone make it worthwhile.