“The words flicker, as smudges from the remnants of the black remjet layer obfuscate the text. Sowell offers new ways of seeing these 21st-century celebrities—namely, as ubiquitous archetypes of capitalist consumption.”

“Sowell’s critique of capitalism is not necessarily a Marxist one, but it is a material one. The choice to shoot the Kardashians on 16 mm film is an argument for the artistry of hand-processed film over the immediacy of digital technologies, and 16 mm film historically evokes avant-garde or oppositional film histories that are often anti-narrative. Whereas narrative storytelling assumes a future—an ongoingness after the three-act structure concludes on-screen—anti-narrative and structural film makes space for the possibility that there is no future, further evidenced by Sowell’s decision to project negatives, which deteriorate with each subsequent screening. The film is not archival: it has a life to expend.”

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