''The Parking Lot Movie'' is an American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

directed by Meghan Eckman. It was filmed from 2007 to 2010 and premiered at the

South By Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...

film festival in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

, in 2010. It was purchased by

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

and aired nationwide on ''

Independent Lens ''Independent Lens'' is a weekly television series airing on PBS featuring documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of ''Independent Lens'' were hosted by Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrence Ho ...

'' October 19, 2010, opening the series' 2010 season.

Synopsis

''The Parking Lot Movie'' follows a group of parking lot attendants who work at The Corner Parking Lot in

Charlottesville, Virginia Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Ch ...

. They have to deal with drunken, rude, and cheap patrons, as well as vandals. The film centers on the experience of the attendants, who are primarily students at the nearby

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

, and mostly majoring in

Liberal Arts Liberal arts education (from Latin "free" and "art or principled practice") is the traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term ''art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the ...

subjects such as

Philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

. The result is that they are given the opportunity while working at the Corner Parking lot to examine aspects of the

human condition The human condition is all of the characteristics and key events of human life, including birth, learning, emotion, aspiration, morality, conflict, and death. This is a very broad topic that has been and continues to be pondered and analyzed fr ...

in terms of

societal norms Social norms are shared standards of acceptance, acceptable behavior by groups. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into wikt:rule, rules and laws. Social normat ...

and

values In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of dif ...

, as well as to refine their own personal philosophy of life. In the words of John Lindaman, one of the attendants who had worked there for 11 years: "It taught me how to be a human being." It is this aspect of the film that sets it apart from other documentaries.

Production

Director Meghan Eckman and assistant director Christopher Hlad filmed ''The Parking Lot Movie'' over a three-year period, from 2007 to 2010, predominantly in and around the Corner Parking Lot in

. The crew interviewed at least 21 people associated with the parking lot, including owner Chris Farina, current attendants, and former attendants. For the soundtrack, Eckman hired New York-based musician Sam Retzer who had spent several years as a student in Charlottesville. Other songs on the soundtrack are written and performed by former parking lot attendants featured in the movie, including Mark Schottinger and John Lindaman.

Film festivals

* South by Southwest Film Festival, Austin TX 2010 *

Independent Film Festival of Boston The Independent Film Festival Boston is a not for profit film festival in Boston, Massachusetts. History The Independent Film Festival Boston (also known as IFFBoston or IFFB) was created in 2003 by the non-profit organization the Independent ...

MA 2010 *

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America. The event takes place annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 27th edition of the festival took place online throughout May and June ...

, Toronto 2010

Reception

The film was generally well received. Neil Genzlinger, reviewing the film for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', compared watching it to actually working at a parking lot, in that "there are long stretches when not much happens, but every once in a while there’s a burst of activity that is kind of enthralling." In particular, he praised the occasional moments when "the ilm'smix of absurdism and intellectualism is perfect."

References

External links