Kamal Aljafari

Kamal Aljafari Has Built a City

Recollection, Kamal Aljafari’s mesmerizing film, is the dream of a cameraman, recapturing the city he loves. The dream veers from transcendental to nightmarish as the beautiful old buildings morph into concrete monstrosities. Carts become wildly veering cars, and plows become bulldozers. But none of this happens sequentially; we see the city and its changes as a dreamer does, in flashes without obvious narrative and in an order that is sporadic rather than chronological.