Capsule review: Next: A Primer on Urban Painting

Next: A Primer on Urban Painting is an examination of the global phenomenon of street art and graffiti. The Quebec Canadian documentary is the first feature film by director Pablo Aravena. Aravena has only previous experience in being an assistant director, but his approach to the subject of street art shows potential for a fruitful career in documentary in the future.

The documentary begins defining the graffiti of the streets of New York, and goes onto similar movements in Montreal, Berlin, London, Tokyo, and Sao Paulo amongst others. In the depiction of each city, Aravena takes his time to illustrate the nature of street art specific to each locale while simultaneously drawing out the similarities between them all.

Rather then relying solely on talking heads, Aravena inter-cuts footage of the process and results of graffiti with interviews of street artists discussing their own work and that occurring in other cities. In doing so, Aravena successfully manages to demonstrate the extent of the phenomenon and the relationship between movements on opposite sides of the world. .

In its international scope, Next: A Primer on Urban Painting comes across as a well-researched and thorough piece of documentary filmmaking. By giving each artist the opportunity to explain his or her work, and justify its presence, Aravena exhibits the upmost respect for his subject matter. The film does, however, feel limited in failing to explore graffiti of the 20th century in the context of a greater art history. Nevertheless, it is a film that would appeal to anyone who considers graffiti as a valid art form. Those who don’t may find the film objectionable.