Jem Cohen is unmatched in the world of personal filmmaking. Constantly shooting, mostly in Super8 and 16mm film, he snatches beautiful compositions from the midst of the mundane. He has collaborated with others on two features (Benjamin Smoke with Peter Sillen and Instrument with the band Fugazi), but Chain marks his first feature-length solo effort. Blurring boundaries between doc and narrative, Chain challenges viewer expectations and is unmatched in the strength of its unique visual style. The plot follows two women, one a Japanese office worker doing research on theme parks, the other a teenage runaway living clandestinely inside a mall. Although the locations seem uniform, the film was shot in seven cities around the world and functions less as an indictment of global homogenization than an attempt to come to terms with the structures and terrain of our late-capitalist era.

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