redlippedlady

It's very odd, but this supposedly "made for festival film" just keeps getting better and better each time I see it! Others have said the same thing. It's like you see more, hear more and really find more traits in these characters that you either relate to, or just are drawn to watch them some more. The actors are fabulous! It almost seems like they ad-lib, but it was confirmed that it was all scripted with just a line here and there that just blurted out of the actor in character, while shooting the scene. Anyway, it's a gritty, sad, honest view of a life gone wrong and of course affecting everyone around them. I'm going to see it again. It'll be in theaters soon. and then on DVD.

I feel so blessed to have been watching the Sundance channel when this powerful, yet delicate film began. Josh Pais took us to his home on 7th street in New York, where his heart lives. Where he grew up. Where his love for the ever evolving society of that street just grew stronger throughout the years, even as the street and it's residents faced destruction from the drug peddlers and all that follows them. I'm not good at telling the story, but Josh's love for humanity and tradition embraces all of his friends on 7th street, and those of us fortunate enough to see his graceful film. Dignity. That is what he gave to the faces and voices of the people he filmed who he spoke with, ate with, quietly sat with, laughed and cried with, who lived there on 7th street, in apartments, or in brown boxes in the alley. It made no difference, they all became the family of 7th street, NYC, USA. Where he and his wife are raising their son. The colors of emotion and reality that this film travels will exhaust you, and energize you. Maybe even humanize you more...it did me.