I love American cars, especially from the 1940s through ‘60s, so from the opening moments of “Elgin Park” I was entranced by the lovely photographs of streamlined Cadillacs, muscular Ford pickup trucks and Chevrolet sedans, glistening in new, super-saturated paint jobs as they sat parked at curbs or in front of vintage buildings.
Except that these are not real cars, or actual buildings. They are 1/24th-size creations of master model make Michael Paul Smith. He has spent the last few years recreating the hometown of his childhood, or at least his emotional reflection of it, using intricately detailed pieces that he creates by hand, photographs and then puts online.
He’s been doing this for a while – he’d get maybe 1,000 page views a year, he reckons – until some of his work was featured in a magazine. Suddenly his audience grew to millions.
Directed by Danny Yourd, “Elgin Park” is not a complete biography of Smith. At nine minutes, how could it cover a lifetime? By it’s a highly engaging and well-crafted documentary short on the power of artistic endeavor for its own sake.
Smith talks about being bullied at school, for being gay and different, and hints at dark territory in the family past. He made it through, scarred but standing, and that’s led him to think deeply on his past and reimagine it in his own version, little piece by piece.
“Elgin Park is never a lonely place for me,” Smith says. “I created Elgin Park so anybody could be there.”
The hyper-accuracy of his models, the complexity of the lighting in his photographs, and the attention to detail are just mesmerizing. “Elgin Park” is a place where many of us would love to linger.
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