Critic's Grade: A

I never thought something as simple as a snapshot of a complete stranger could become such a collective obsession. Welcome to a world that bends and twists itself around nostalgic collectors feats that takes face value in the astonishing Other People's Pictures. It's a documented world that has been in existence for about twenty years it comes with it's own singular society of language, customs, and economy. Amazingly, these collectors celebrate the past as they spend hard earned cash on photographs-which acknowledges other peoples history. Even though these portraits of faces will never know will always have a casting shadow of mystery that surrounds them.

Nine collectors set their eyes on boxes, piles, and bins of black and white snap shots which leads up to the most important question. "Why would anyone want to buy someone else's family photographs?" It's a question that has been a silenced mystery for these last two decades but now it has a voice on film. Other People's Pictures gives these obessed collectors's a chance to observe, explain, and finally reveal this addictive nature on this visually artsy world.

Yes, it's an unlikely obsession but one that does require forethought, organization, a creative instinct, and self-motivation to continue to hunt for that next great still shot. "The original owners who have long since misplaced these portraits mystify the collector what historical event happened before than after the picture was taken?" It's an endless journey of thought that does not have any one particular answer to explain the true facts on these mysterious lives they consume. To these collectors it's a sense of fantasy, suspense, and the single thought that they will never know the answers.

The film is set at New York City's Chelsea Flea Market where fellow collectors's come and sift through the lost faces of the past. A Collector sets his mind on a particular theme or story then proceeds to tell rummaging to put the pieces of the puzzle together. It puts their minds at ease, silences the voices in their minds in fulfills their lives knowing what there doing is conjuring fictional stories by using factual pictures. They take photographs of vacations, holidays, and weddings with an endless sense of true passion for the people behind them.

The people who take these pictures we will never see only a shadow that stands alone beyond the cameras eye. Featuring amateur photographers that set the tone for the collector's who want to capture that hidden faces of yesteryear. Who are they really? Family members, strangers in passing a constant thought of wonder that brings them back to an old stomping grounds of flea markets, an old attic with a trunk covered in cog webs just lost in time.

Directors and Producers Lorca Sheppard, Cabot Philbrick record the legacy behind these people who have accumulated thousands of snap shots. Buried behind things in closets, basements, or filling a single room with these pieces of unknown artistic man made visions.

Photographs tell a story even without facts, or a simple description interestingly enough can be found in the pictures themselves. One picture within its dark background has a picture of the source of true unrelenting evil Adolf Hitler. You can see in the foreground a family standing right beyond this picture of this inhuman demon watching them closely.

In March of 2003, this independent feature has been awarded a stipend from the Jerome Foundation and a month-long artist's retreat at the New York Mills Cultural Center in New York Mills, MN, to begin post-production on Other People's Pictures.

Overall, the film takes a keen eye to everyday life especially the more sinister kind. Even though the film shows the positive end to eras lost in our minds. They resemble our past even though we have no known history with them we preserve there memories through pictures. They deserve to be remembered through the strangers who collect these small intimate portraits.

It's one of this year's best documentaries and will keep you in total fascination from opening credits to when the screen fades to black.

The film had only a one-time screening at the Coolidge Corner Theater, Brookline it came also with a sold-out theatrical showing.

Dan's review **** star(s)

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