the city in film
So glad to reconnect with this 1980s classic from Joan Micklin Silver, which I found much richer and poignant since I’d recently caught up with her 1975 Hester Street.
Here’s the basic plot in limerick:
At the bookstore she flirts, cool and coy
With her eye on a popular goy.
Her friends and her bubbe
All want her a hubby
But what's wrong with a nice Jewish boy...?
This short and quirky documentary (14 min.) captures what happens on a busy Stockholm street when the City Council votes to install a “spår-vidds-hinder” (a new-fangled device embedded in the middle of the road to allow buses, but not cars, to use a specific lane — or, as described more accurately by one of the locals, a “car trap”).
Along the way, there are more than a few flat tires and broken axles — and one missed ferry-ride leading (sadly) to an aborted birthday party. It’s humorous and light, but planners will recognize and identify with real world challenges presented as a well-intentioned traffic solution goes horribly off-road. In the end, the experiment delivers an important lesson: even the simplest urban planning interventions need to account for “the human factor.” (Or, in the words of one of bemused on-lookers, “It’s bloody hilarious. There are idiots, and then there are idiots.”) Notes to self: nobody ever reads signs, everyone assumes that the rules don’t apply to them, and people trust their GPS more than their own eyes.