SECRET MALL APARTMENT taps into a lot of today’s hot button issues like gentrification, privatization of once public spaces, corporate control, white privilege, public art, and just sticking it to the man. It’s also a larger than life tale that is very funny in turns.
Back in the early 2000s, a group of artists found an unused niche space in an unused part of a mall, and basically turned it into an apartment. They put up concrete block walls, found a spot they could plug in an extension cord, put up a door with a lock, and found some furniture. And this being the 21st Century, they shot most of it on digital.
Albeit, while that part of the tale is funny and kind of a heist film in its way, it’s also the least interesting part of the film. Heck, the “apartment” didn’t have air conditioning, heating, windows, or plumbing and nobody was living in it full time, although they may have crashed on the couch a time or two. It was more of a Secret Mall Hangout Place which doesn’t nearly conjure the same ideas.
Instead, the film is most interesting when it concentrates on the individual people and particularly ring leader Michael Townsend. I feel that Jeremy Workman met Michael Townsend and heard the story, he must have immediately identify that the apartment was a nice hook, but Townsend was the real meat of the story. Townsend was an artist with a niche, in particular he would create tape art in hospitals, engaging the patients of a local children’s hospital in the process, and although the art was temporary, the effect he had on the patients was profound. He’d carry it to a larger level by creating temporary public art for the victims of 9/11 in New York City. And he would do things like create uncanny mannequin displays in barely accessible storm sewers. Part of his art would be in reclaiming supposedly public spaces. Was the Secret Mall Apartment a piece of performance art? The film brings up the idea. His ex-wife brings up that he was kind of obsessed with the idea of the apartment. The part where the apartment was discovered was directly related to Townsend wanting to brag about it, and is funny as hell.
I don’t quite buy it as performance art. I think art needs to be shared with an audience. So, if it is, it’s a long form piece that took 20 years to be completed and displayed. So, I’m not completely on board with one of the film’s theses, although I am willing to buy it as an action of sticking it to the man in a way that he doesn’t even notice.
But, SECRET MALL APARTMENT, I do buy as art. At worst, it merely details a somewhat funny prank. At best, it brings up all the themes I laid out at the beginning, and entertains the audience at the same time. Honestly, it probably would be a good companion piece with F FOR FAKE. It’s well worth checking out.
The 2025 Milwaukee Film Festival runs from April 24, 2025 until May 8, 2025. SECRET MALL APARTMENT plays once more at the 2025 Milwaukee Film Festival on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 at 6:00 PM at the Oriental Theatre . Tickets to SECRET MALL APARTMENT and other films can be purchased at MKEFILM.ORG.
