Secret Mall Apartment (Jeremy Workman, 2024, USA)
Jeremy Workman’s Secret Mall Apartment has recently gone viral on Netflix, and for good reason. The story has been waiting to be turned into a documentary for years, with the main figurehead of the titular mall apartment, Michael Townsend, turning down upward of 30 directors who pitched him on making a film about the story. It is perhaps for the best that the story wasn’t made into a documentary immediately, as the participants in the “secret mall apartment” have had time to reflect on the meaning of this strange art/life project. Also, our era is eager for nostalgia, and the late 90s and early 2000s were arguably the last great gasp of Gen X alternaculture - doing something just for the sake of doing it. For those familiar with Providence’s history and place on the cultural map, Secret Mall Apartment will be especially interesting. The city birthed an art scene in the 1990s that had national reknown, particularly in the form of its noise rock scene that birthed international acts li...
