Cast: Miho Nikaido, Mira Billotte. Screenplay: Jem Cohen. Cinematography: Jem Cohen. Film editing: Jem Cohen, Davey Frankel.
Look at something familiar -- a word, a face, a tree, a building -- long enough and it becomes something alien, an arrangement of shapes and lines. Look at it for a while longer, and it can begin to take on a significance you've never found in the object before. That's what Jem Cohen's Chain does to one of the most familiar and banal of American institutions: the shopping mall. For some it's a place of comfort and convenience, while for others it's an emblem of consumer capitalism. For the two very different women who are the focus (not the protagonists, certainly not the heroines) of the film, it's a bit of both. Tamiko (Miho Nikaido) is a Japanese businesswoman who sees the shopping mall as a place to be exploited for the profits of the company she works for. Amanda (Mira Billotte) is a homeless runaway who sees the mall as a place to be exploited for mere survival. Adroitly manipulating images filmed at malls all over the country, Cohen first deconstructs the shopping mall and its welter of familiar corporate logos, and then, through juxtaposing what happens during the days Tamiko and Amanda (who never meet) spend in this ambiance, allows viewers to bring their own significance to an unlikely place. The result is eerie and revelatory.
