local film review
Plethora
Most Americans are guilty of it, having too much stuff. Local filmmaker Victoria Jorgensen's documentary, "Plethora, a movie about stuff", tackles that issue in an informative and entertaining way that everyone can learn from
Like a well crafted essay, Jorgensen presents her documentary with an opening premise, backs it up with examples, and sums it up with a conclusion. During the course of the video she avoids what I consider the pitfalls of documentary making, too many talking heads repeating the same things and lack of entertainment value.
"Plethora" features the expected experts, talking about our culture's addiction to acquiring things, but editor Sandra Brogioni's quick shots of consumer goods and cars, keeps us from having to stare at just talking heads during these segments.
The real fun starts when we learn about the astounding growth of the self service storage industry and we get to see inside Bonita and Pete's, as well as Mary's, self storage units. Without giving away too much, my favorite is when Bonita and Pete pull a box out and opens it to reveal pinecones. Yes, they are paying to store pinecones!
The video also features some local celebrities such as performance artist Pat Oleszko's profound thoughts on our collecting obsessions and local artist Bud Mayhem's eyeball and Ronald McDonald collections.
"Plethora" succeeds in making it points about our culture's obsession of keeping stuff. It also succeeds in being entertaining as well, avoiding the stuffiness that is so often associated with documentaries.
Brazilian filmmaker Sandra Brogioni (and Plethora's editor) with filmmaker Victoria Jorgensen
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Plethora [pleth-er-uh]–noun 1. overabundance; excess