Elgin Park
2015 · 10m · USA
Directed by Danny Yourd
Genres: biography, documentary
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
A documentary portrait of reclusive artist Michael Paul Smith, whose forced-perspective photographs of a meticulously hand-built 1/24-scale model town, Elgin Park, drew tens of millions of views online. The film moves from a celebration of his craft to the surprisingly somber personal history that inspired it.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects a feel-good doc about obsessive craft, and Yourd subverts it entirely—the miniature town becomes a container for real grief, which is the opposite move most filmmakers would make.
A formally elegant portrait that situates itself in the lineage of documentary portraiture while respecting the decorative arts tradition; the forced perspective conceit mirrors the film's own layering of surfaces and depths.
The decision to let Smith's melancholy slowly overtake the visual wonder—to trust that the camera work and his quiet presence will communicate what words can't—is what transforms a technical marvel into something genuinely moving.
Reviews
Elgin Park is a captivating documentary about Michael Paul Smith, the reclusive artist whose photographs of hand built and realistic miniatures of his imaginary town Elgin Park went viral.
As the film progresses it too goes from being a seemingly positive portrait of an artist to becoming a more intimate and real experience with the man within the artist.
Festivals
- Iris Prize 2015