A Beautiful, Claustrophobic Dream

Reese Street

Jeremiah Zagar has taken refuge behind the camera in this award-winning documentary about his father, Isaiah Zagar, an obsessive post-hippie mosaicist and occasional manic; his mother Julia, a grounded muse, enabler, and entrepreneur; and his brother, a troubled, addicted foil to the family drama. The film is itself a mosaic: family films and photographs, produced as part of the relentless documentation in multiple media of their lives from the mid-sixties forward, animations of Isaiah's drawings, footage of the glittering, mosaic-crusted Philadelphia buildings that Isaiah has transformed, and reality-TV-style depiction of their transitions and ups and downs. Colorful, inspirational, and insightful, the film poses questions about the relationship between art, sanity, family, stability, money, loyalty, and perseverence. Most of all, the relentlessly mosaic-ed interior of the family home overwhelms any possible individuation; the horror vacui of the art work oppressively dominates all who dwell within, as the personality of Isaiah does his family. Bless the families of artists!