13th street division is both real and fantastic, a vortex under the freeway by a place with two names. It features a rapidly vanishing San Francisco, its gritty and industrial sections crushed by gentrification. The storytelling is organic, with time-lapses of the area around 13th Street and original footage of Occupy SF, Free Pussy Riot, May Day and the March Against Monsanto protests.
The people, all played by non-actors, are mysterious, with tenuous ties to each other. Somehow, they influence each other, perhaps illustrating Carl Jung’s concept of synchronicity, aka meaningful coincidences, “the experience of two or more events as meaningfully related, where they are unlikely to be causally related”.
Chaotic stop-motion animation completes this partial picture of our need for old-fashioned connectivity. Cast includes Tony Lopes, Paul Siegel and others. Sounds by Kwisp.
