Jasper Mall

I remember when I was young always being at the mall. Whether it was just hanging out or hitting the food court, it was the place to go in a small town. The traditional mall is a dying world and this documentary captures one example of this. Great film, it's a must watch.

All in all I enjoyed this documentary about a dying mall in Jasper Alabama. The film offers a cross section of people who work there and shop there as well as efforts (generally not successful) to increase foot traffic. I just wished occasionally the film makers had pulled away from the mall setting to give us some context about the larger community where the mall is set. Sure, internet commerce has hurt malls across the country, but are there shopping areas in Jasper that are prospering, such as downtown or the area where the jewelry repair shop moved to? Or is Jasper overall an economically depressed area that has gone severely down hill since the hey day of Jasper Mall in the 80s and 90s? The film would have been a much more rewarding experience for me if such contextual interludes had been provided.

The documentary provides a good picture of the current state of the American middle class. The various causes of the mall's decline emerge throughout the documentary.

The epitome of a slice-of-life documentary! Jasper Mall offers such straightforward Middle America vibes that anyone who's never left the big city they grew up in might find this pretty alien. It's so low key, so go-with-the-flow, so "real time" feeling that it manages a dreamlike quality. Of course, the dreamlike pace also comes from the disciplined editing, the reflective ambient score, and the beautiful photography. There is an endearing quality to this doc, but also an underlying melancholy all the way through.

I think the average person would think "nothing happens in this movie", but that's beside the point. What it comes down to is: I never thought I would see malls become a thing of the past in my entire lifetime. Now, suddenly, we're here, and slowly, one by one, they're gonna start shutting down. What's the primary reason for this? Amazon, of course. Where did I watch this movie? On Amazon (Prime Video) - how meta is that?

The fact that this was shot in 2019, the year before the pandemic hit, also adds another element of surrealism to the viewing experience. It's almost like a precursor to the vacant vibes we were about to face. It makes you wonder - is the pandemic really expediting the obsoletion of so many things that we've been accustomed to our whole lives, as much as we think it is? Or, would most of this be happening soon any way?

In the end, I don't think you will walk away from Jasper Mall remembering many of the specific scenes for the rest of your life, maybe none of them at all, but it's an equally comforting and eerie thing to watch in our current state (nearly one year into the COVID-19 pandemic). It floats in this strange limbo between nostalgic warmth and dystopian apathy. It's a tasteful doc - subtle but with great purpose.

A very sad but poignant documentary about a dying mall in Alabama. It captures the struggle of everyday life brilliantly and without narration, but there is always hope tucked away if you look.