Customer Reviews

Radiant City

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4 star:		(1)
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This is a funny and informative look at life in suburbia.
It's like a mix between The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American D Ream and This Is Spinal Tap (Special Edition).
The actors, just regular folk, are simply wonderful.
The film is interspersed with comments from community design scholar James Howard Kunstler who wrote The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape.

The National Film Board of Canada helped in the production of this film. They've been involved in many excellent films, including The Corporation and Manufacturing Consent - Noam Chomsky and the Media.
People who are interested in the topics of suburbia, peak oil and human society will also want to check out A Crude Awakening - The Oil Crash.

Critical view of suburbia by a filmmaker who grew up there. Interviews with realtors, experts on city planning and architecture, mixed in with footage of the Moss family's daily routines. Never boring and very educational. Basically spells out why things seem so bleak and everyone needs anti-depressants to cope. (HINT: Its not because of a chemical imbalance in the brain, as your body's reaction to your environment is quite natural) Should be mandatory viewing by all. Other documentaries about suburbia I recommend are: The End of Suburbia, Escape from Suburbia, Subdivided, Gimme Green.

Wow! What a wake-up call for the current American suburban life style and the often dysfunctional values that sustain it. From our hour-plus commutes in mind numbing traffic, to our grossly overpriced cookie-cutter tract homes, to the always busy, busy, busy moms and dads shuttling kids from one programmed activity to another, this is a shocking and all too accurate portrait of the American "anxious class."

It is unlikely that anybody could watch this 90-minute documentary without sensing their daily personal reality slapping them in the face. This powerful video brought to mind the lyrics of John Lennon from a bygone era, "A working class hero is so hard to be. They keep you doped on religion, sex and TV. And you think you're so clever and classless and free. But you're still [just] peasants as far as I can see!" Perhaps it's time for all of us to reevaluate the American dream... that is unless your house is already in foreclosure.

"Radiant City" is an interesting faux documentary about the ills of suburban living, presumably suffering by comparison with urban existence. It follows the daily life of one family in the Winnipeg area -long commutes, crushing daily routines, a suburban wasteland for kids bicycling around empty streets, pre-teen boys paintballing around half-built houses. I say faux documentary because the family members are "played" by actors..or at least by people not really related to each other. Suburban existence is decried as soul-crushing.

Maybe but ... I don't hear a unanimous chorus of this from the characters portrayed. In free societies, people can choose to live in the city or in the `burbs. Tradeoffs abound; life is like that. No one forces people to move out to the suburbs but harsh economic facts often make urban living financially out of reach. Not to mention (often) poor schools, crime, noise, congestion, etc. The joys of urban living are not altogether idyllic, as often suggested by the young, hip, urban planners and architects who offer cameos in this film.

Some suburbs still cultivate a sense of community, despite their remoteness from downtown areas. It can be done. In my closest "radiant city" (Washington DC), you stand a much better chance of getting mugged or murdered than if you live in the suburbs. That's a tall price for being hip!!

The solution? Forced resettlement of suburbanites to the overpriced environs of downtown? The closest solution offered is the notion of building workplaces and apartments in peoples' front yards, in the 24-feet setbacks that you find in many suburbs. I question how realistic that is. "Radiant City" is an interesting film that provokes contemplation on lifestyle tradeoffs people make and how they can make conscious choices about ordering their lives. It may mythologize excessively the presumed joys of urban dwelling over suburban existence.

i really enjoyed this dvd. the topic is timely, the photography is stark but beautiful and the actors are appealing. in addition, the movie is funny with just a tinge of terror. it's imbued with subtle canadian humor.

Outstanding documentary on why people choose the suburbs and what they find when they get there. Outstanding commentary is interspersed with interviews of a family that is engaging from the get go (I hope the boy has an agent--loved him!). Funny, interesting, sad, it serves as a cry for something different.