obsessions, ideas, works-in-progress, and other tumblings from shanai haana matteson.
A teaser trailer for the French film DETROIT WILD CITY.
“Florent Tillon’s film begins with familiar but inevitably arresting images of Detroit’s decay into postapocalyptic pastoralism, but doesn’t end there. While most cinematic pilgrims have portrayed the Motor City as a giant canvas onto which they project their outsider fantasies, Tillon has greater ambitions and greater respect. The obligatory urban tour of empty factories and the abandoned Michigan Central station quickly gives way to a contemplative, nuanced discussion of what futures might actually be possible…” -Rick Prelinger
An outsider historian named ‘Black Monk’ also suggests that there are limits to urban pioneering, that ‘urban pioneers find the edge, but don’t occupy it,’ and that ‘cities are built by settlers, not pioneers.’ What I saw in this film resembles what I think I’ve begun to learn in Detroit: that while macronarratives may help us understand the past, micronarratives will describe the future, and that Detroit’s destiny will be the product of many individual, smallgroup and localized efforts, rather than one single systemic initiative.
Rick Prelinger in a post about a recent trip to Detroit, including some thoughts on the French film DETROIT WILD CITY. I’ve been thinking a lot about placemaking and narrative lately. Rick’s post has some interesting threads that are worth thinking about even if the localized efforts and micronarratives you are a part of happen to be about the future of Minneapolis, rather than Detroit.
To Read More: Let’s Not Bash Detroit (or Fetishize It. Either)
