Conversations with a Monster
2025 · 10m · USA
Directed by Jonah Bergman
Genres: documentary, experimental
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
A Hollywood Boulevard busker paints his face green every morning, poses for tourist cash, and talks about his romantic life and his love for classic horror movies. Super 8mm grain treats him like the monster he plays.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Hollywood Boulevard buskers are documentary's most overworked subject, but shooting one on Super 8 inverts the whole transaction — now the format makes him precious, not pathetic.
Super 8 as time machine for a Hollywood Boulevard busker — Bergman lets the format make him historical in real time, which is the Gleaners and I move done with restraint. Tender and exact.
A Hollywood Boulevard green-faced busker narrating his own iconography on the sidewalk where it gets bought and sold, shot on Super 8 so the format makes him historical in real time — that's a beautiful match of subject and stock. Doc-fictional portrait done with discipline.
Reviews
An endearing snapshot that has the feeling of an old home video recently discovered from dusty storage bin