Director Monica Strømdahl's “flophouse America” provides an intrinsic document on American poverty. Fluffy people are low-cost, rundown motels, and many are forced to stay after they can’t afford higher housing. In her featured documentary debut, Strømdahl spent several years visiting these locations and taking photos of residents in the United States. Then she meets Mikal, who tells his story in “flophouse America” and determines that the state of stillness is not enough. Because he was underage and the video was filmed, the filmmaker waited for him to grow up as an adult to get his consent to share his story.
The director's insistence on not joining digital images provides a profound reality for the toughness of the photograph. Because the movie opens up, it’s a matter of fact, and the ruthless voice shares statistics about children’s living in the United States, parental abuse and alcoholism, as the numbers flash with simple white text content on the black display. Then, a young man seemed to enter the entrance to the microphone and said, “I'm considered one of them.”
From the age of 11, Mikal lives in a single room with his father, mom and a cat, and films started at the age of 11. They slept on the mattress, while he picked up the sofa, separated by fragile curtains. The toilet is used as the kitchen and the bathtub is stuffed with dirty dishes. Strømdahl's Digicam captures the suffocating neighborhood of the family living, the body always near the faces of the three protagonists and close to the invading partition of the small house. Even cats' fur sheds seem to take up too much home.
The film is regularly produced for dramatic informal occasions. Early on, there was a lot of trouble with the prospect of buying new footwear from Mikal. His mom Tonya kept several trips to the mall. She promises that Mikal will happen once his father, Jason, gets off work again. Mikal fully reacts to monosyllables, and his uninterestedness shows his suspicion. Not surprisingly, Jason reveals it late as another day in a bar. Mikal's lingering digital crowds captured his disappointment, and it's clear that the same situation has already happened earlier than it did and can continue to be repeated.
We do feel claustrophobia and Mikal can do nothing when Tonya and Jason start to fight loudly, insulting each other at the entrance of Mikal. These arguments continue in the film. Mikal, Tonya and Jason scream at each other, screaming and throwing evil truths. Mikal failed at school. Tonya drinks too much and is often blackened. Jason went to work and was exhausted again to hitchhike Tonya's consumer maniac. Cigarettes filled the small house. Neither of them can realize it through the opposite two, including stress.
In the middle of the movie is Mikal's relationship with his mom, while Jason is an extra perimeter determined, an invalid referee between two combatants, who manages to just barter. The camera clearly grasps his pain as Mikal begs his father and mother to stop consuming because of his sanity. He expressed frustration very clearly to his father and mother and found his phrases from his youth.
With a sharp frame, Strømdahl uses pure gentleness (fluorescent bulbs from fluorescent motels) and static verbose photos that can move with interruptions. When tragedy strikes (and probably won’t), the filmmakers are cautious and respectful from afar. Although it showed pain, the diCAM felt probing and invasive. It opens up a small, suffocating house when it shows sadness and loss.
Although we will never hear or see Strømdahl, she has not delayed caution and omnipresence. Some scenes are so uncooked that the thought of a digital card being the latest, let alone another particular person. There are few conversations that seem forced or wrong, and where adults try to put their literal meanings in place of their failure to achieve the American Dream.
While “flophouse America” may be a tough time promoting the film festival’s embrace environment, it’s worth more audiences. This is a real and realistic portrait that is unmoved and keen. It is the audience, especially those in the United States, who have seen a lot. It's a movie that reveals what poverty can bring, and it's so close that most people forget about it.
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