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Reviews
The World Before Your Feet (2018)
A Journey For Everyone
Filmmaker Jeremy Workman has the "Eye". Like Herzog, Morris and Broomfield, Workman sees for so many of us who simply either don't care, or don't dare to look deeper into a world all of us share...from an eccentric neighbor, ignored by his fellow citizens for most of his life as in MAGICAL UNIVERSE, to a treasure-trove of sheer wonders which lay just a few feet beyond us all...if we only dare to take a few steps and look...this is THE WORLD BEFORE YOUR FEET.
Following Matt Green's personal journey to walk every street, sidewalk, alley and footpath through the 5 boroughs of New York City - an adventure covering approx. 8000 miles -- the film is both understated and startling. Green is you and me, and everyone we know, along with every stranger we pass-by every day. He is thoughtful, curious and likable; someone anyone would enjoy knowing, enjoy having a conversation with. Matt Green embodies how we feel deep down about ourselves...that we have more to give, that something larger is out there, larger than we've ever seen. Something that transcends opinion and division and routine.
Green, a highly-educated professional who turned his back on a 6-figure income career to walk an easy-pace throughout NYC, plotting a course which has him walking in daylight and darkness, fair weather and winter blizzards, encounters what can, at the end, be only described as fellow human beings. There are few interactions which one would find either 'intense' or potentially 'dangerous'; Matt Green is sincere and disarming, and even the most confrontational people - like a man who is incensed at Green taking pictures of his home - come to understand within seconds of the encounter that Green is no threat...ending with a smile, handshake and hug. Within SECONDS.
To his credit and testament to his film-making acumen, Jeremy Workman is virtually invisible in this project. The viewer is never aware of Workman's presence or direction or even his voice...in spite of interviews with Green's family, former girlfriends and fellow sojourners. Workman takes care to ensure this is the story of Matt Green himself and in so doing, tells the larger story about everyone who views the film.
THE WORLD BEFORE YOUR FEET is a lesson for all of us, presented as a travelogue, of sorts. But it is much, much more. It is quietly uplifting and left open-ended for those of us yet to begin our own journeys.
Magical Universe (2013)
The Magic of Humanity
An impromptu change in their vacation schedule leads filmmaker Jeremy Workman and his then fiancé, Astrid von Ussar to a meeting with Al Carbee. A widower residing in a small town in Maine, Carbee is also a resident of his own universe, driven to endlessly create a personal landscape populated with a myriad of Barbies in countless scenes and situations which he then photographs and catalogs. His home is akin to a DIY fun-house, complete with man-made underground caverns and upper rooms where he toils in virtual solitude and anonymity.
I must admit to lukewarm expectations prior to screening this documentary; too often studies of this sort are either one- dimensional or tend to present eccentric creators in a rather tongue-in-cheek, vaguely insulting way. Instead, how surprised - and delighted - I was to see Al's universe through the eyes of Jeremy Workman, how privileged I was to experience their resulting friendship and subsequent journey as their lives intersected in a way that so often happens -- quite by accident. How satisfying and uplifting and yes, heartbreaking, to see two lives forever changed and enriched thanks to a moment in time that came so close to never happening. I was brought to tears, filled with both sadness and hope and finally, gratitude to have watched what Jeremy Workman and Al Carbee gave to each other and, in a very real sense, to a wider audience like myself.
MAGICAL UNIVERSE is not merely a chronicle of a widowed recluse who photographs Barbie dioramas. It is a celebration of humanity, a love letter to friendship, a reminder that, while the world may be a vast and mysterious place, we are just a single detour away, always within reach of our own magical universe.