BOMB IT is a wild ride into the heart of the global graffiti
culture where the love of art and ego clashes explosively with
law and order. On top of a fresh soundtrack of punk, hip-hop and
funk, this high-octane film explores the many manifestations of
"bombing." Through grainy night vision footage and raw
interviews, the punks, ghetto Picassos, taggers, misfits, and
political dissidents demonstrate in no uncertain terms why they
risk arrest and injury to express themselves and reflect their
society with spraypaint and marker. The rough-and-tumble cast of
BOMB IT hails from New York and Tokyo, Berlin and Barcelona,
Capetown, and Sao Paulo, with each city boasting its own unique
style and form of grafitti. From the pioneers of bombing who
painted living museums on trains as they rolled between the Bronx
and Brooklyn in New York to the underground artist who seeks the
sublime painting in blue deep in the bowels of Sao Paulo's
sewers, the artists in BOMB IT are fascinating studies in the
power of art to disturb, protest, and enlighten.
Review
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The movie also considers that bombing (the term of choice for
graffiti painters), once deemed a subversive act, has inevitably
been co-opted over the last decade or so, its influences turning
up in video games and marketing campaigns, and the work itself
ed on gallery walls. But if the artists shown here making
magic with spray paint are any indication, graffiti will never go
out of style. It will continue to move with the times; with luck,
the filmmakers there to document it will do it the justice that
this one does. --New York Times
Genuinely global, multicultural, and multilingual in its urban
perspectives, this lively documentary features graffiti artists
talking about their work and illustrates their discourse with
images in Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Berlin,
Hamburg, Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Cape Town, Sao Paolo,
Tijuana, and Tokyo. Filmmaker Jon Reiss also occasionally gives
voice to people trying to eradicate graffiti. The relentless
quick cutting and pop soundtrack are counterbalanced by the
artists' personalities and sociopolitical credos. Unlike Michael
Glawogger's more visionary Megacities (1998), this offers neither
city symphonies nor overarching theses, but as the title
suggests, the theme of rebellion predominates --Chicago Reader
The Bronx subway "bombers" of the '70s had no idea they'd inspire
an international movement, but overseas taggers took the spray
paint and ran with it. In this graffiti doc, due in theaters and
on DVD in May, Blek Le Rat stencils rodents along Parisian curbs;
São Paulo artist Zezao "-caps" surreal mindscapes onto sewage
tunnels; and Tokyo mom Belx2 splatters walls with little girl
pictograms. --Wired
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About the Director
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Named one of 10 Digital Directors to Watch by Daily Variety,
Reiss has covered the West Coast punk explosion, documented the
notorious San Francisco performance group Survival Research
Laboratories, rave culture in his debut feature-length
documentary, Better Living Through Circuitry, and now graffiti
culture. He also has a non-doc under his belt: the award-winning
dark psychological drama, Cleopatra's Second Husband. Also famous
for his music videos, in 1995 the Toronto Film Festival curated a
retrospective of Reiss' music videos, which included 1992 s
accled Nine Inch Nails video, Happiness in Slavery. Jon Reiss
work has screened at festivals, theaters and cultural centers
throughout the world as well as on channels such as IFC,
Showtime, and the Sundance Channel. Reiss received his MFA from
the UCLA Film School.
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