The Polaroid Job
2016 · 9m · USA
Directed by Mike Plante
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, humorous, tender
Through found Polaroids and deadpan narration, a filmmaker reconstructs his parents' livelihood photographing strangers posing with mascots.
Picked by Zoe
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Filmmaker reconstructs his parents' Frankenstein-and-Easter-Bunny photo hustle from found Polaroids. "Frankenstein and the Easter Bunny kept my family afloat" — that's already the movie. Charmed.
Plante reconstructs his parents' livelihood through found Polaroids and deadpan narration, in the explicit lineage of Berliner and McElwee — a New York Times-published essay-film with proper curatorial standing. Modest scale, real form.
NYT-produced, 38K views, 8:35 — and the OG line "Frankenstein and the Easter Bunny kept my family afloat" is the entire essayistic voice in one sentence. A film entirely composed of found Polaroids about the labor of taking found Polaroids is the kind of recursive formal honesty I love.