Movie Review: The Parking Lot Movie

Now out on DVD (Watch it Now), is Meghan Eckman's highly enjoyable documentary The Parking Lot Movie, which chronicles the day to day existence of a bunch of rag-tag parking lot attendants in Charlottesville, VA. But these are not your average "service workers." Comprised of musicians, artists, professors, and students (or floundering graduates) from a variety of disciplines, these parking lot attendants assume the position of the town philosopher who watch the comings and goings with a critical eye. Many of them equate their experience working the lot as an existential journey, where they not only learn about their own inner most workings, but they also come to an enlightened view of the world through the most mundane of social interactions.

Coming in at a scant 70 minutes, the film is comprised of short philosophical vignettes where everything from the ridiculousness of the SUV craze to emotional impact of having a job where "you do nothing... all day" is contemplated. The commentary is hysterical, the characters are engrossing, and the overall watching experience is one that kept my mind buzzing hours after watching. These are the kids in high school that didn't care about being liked. They are the ones with passionate and informed views on the world who will not relent in an argument. They are the people you want to be friends with, but you are too afraid of what they will say about you or what your friends will say about them. These guys (and they are all guys) have found a transitional mecca where the knowledge and mystique of those who have come before them on the lot is passed down in an almost primal tradition.

The exploits of the attendants on their day to day routine outside the booth are captivating enough, but it is their various views of the world that won't let you look away. The abilities of the director are minimally on display in the film, and the loosest of structures as well as a lack of transitional bridges from section to section certainly don't help. But in the end, it doesn't matter... and is almost perfectly appropriate. A well polished or precisely constructed film about these characters would diminish the impact of their awesomeness. This is a true instance where a director and a subject and its characters all converged perfectly at the same time in their lives. When the film ended, I was sad that my time with the wisemen of the Corner Parking Lot had ended. I still had so much more to learn.

8/10