Fragments of Paradise
5
Documentary
2022
98 min
-
For over 70 years, Jonas Mekas, internationally known as the "godfather" of avant-garde cinema, documented his life in what came to be known as his diary films. From his arrival in New York City as a displaced person in 1949 to his death in 2019, he chronicled the trauma and loss of exile while pioneering institutions to support the growth of independent film in the United States. Fragments of Paradise is an intimate look at his life and work constructed from thousands of hours of his own video and film diaries-including never-before-seen tapes and unpublished audio recordings. It is a story about finding beauty amidst profound loss, and a man who tried to make sense of it all... with a camera.
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"Fragments of Paradise tells the life story of independent filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who for over 70 years, documented nearly his entire life. Mekas was the first daily vlogger to ever exist (suck on that Casey Neistat)! Mekas, known for having a camera with him at all times, was attempting to catch some of the beauty and happiness of the human experience. His goal, although he didn’t realize it until his old age, was to capture the little fragments of paradise scattered throughout his life.
There is something poetic and grounding about seeing raw, unedited video footage of the real world from a time when video footage was largely unavailable. There’s a scene where Mekas was documenting himself walking around the streets of New York, just for the sake of documenting it. There was no special occasion, no goal. He just wanted to capture that particular moment in time. As a viewer, getting to experience a regular citizen walking around the streets of New York in 1970, 28 years before I was even born, feels almost psychedelic."
Narwhal
