Videoheaven

Returning with a vengeance — for some as a cherished memory of nerdy youth, for others as little more than a whispered legend — the video store, that glorious retail outlet essential to the nurturing or wasting of some of the best minds of a few generations, finally receives the cinematic tribute it so richly deserves. Alex Ross Perry, a former clerk at the legendary Kim’s Video in New York, who must have had plenty of time behind the counter to ponder the significance of the business, has collected an archive of countless film clips, commercials, and TV shows, depicting both chain and indie video rental stores. The result is a hilariously obsessive, boundlessly insightful ode to analogue cinephilia, and to the place that meant so much to him.
But for Perry — and for Daniel Herbert, whose seminal essay Videoland inspired the film — the disappearance of the video store was not simply part of a predictable evolution of technology and consumerism, but another political symptom of the end of public space, and ultimately of an entire way of life. At least cinemas are still around, so now we can go to one and watch three hours of video stores.

Sergio Fant

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