Jasper Mall (2020)

[Flack]

Mike McClelland is the manager of Jasper Mall, located in Jasper, Alabama, not far from Birmingham. He is also the head of security, the maintenance man, and the custodian. He used to own his own petting zoo, but after complains from PETA and multiple citations, he had to shut it down. Now, he runs the mall.

"Last week someone pooped in the middle of the bathroom floor," says Mike. "I had to clean it up."

Jasper Mall may be the slowest paced film I've ever seen, and I loved every minute of it. The documentary, which was filmed in 2018, covers a year in the life of a dying mall. By 2017, Jasper Mall lost both of its anchor stores (J.C. Penny's and K-Mart). Of the 35 retail spots located inside the mall, "many are available," Mike laments.

The film features multiple vignettes. There's the jewelry store owner, who watches television during the day and occasionally plays his electric guitar in his shop's lobby. There's the lethargic mall Santa. There's Robin, the owner of Robin's Nest, who has decided to retire and close her flower shop after 25 years. There's the dating high school teenagers, one of whom has been accepted to college and the other who plans to move away and work at his brother's landscaping company. There are the four old men who show up to the mall to play dominoes in the plaza. There are the teens in the nail salon who confess to one another that they are beginning to suspect there might be life outside of Jasper, Alabama.

The hub to this wheel is Mike, who greets mall walkers by name, turns on the electricity every morning, and mops the mall every night. When the mall's last restaurant (Subway) pulls out, it is Mike who makes phone calls, trying to get another restaurant to move in. "The shop owners are tired of leaving the mall to go get lunch," he says. One of Mike's nightly duties is to inspect the abandoned cavernous anchor stores each night, ensuring that no one has broken in. Mike says there are rumors of someone moving in to one of the anchor stores. There are always rumors of new businesses moving in, but they're just rumors.

In the closing scene, Mike, sweeping and mopping the mall's floors, informs the camera crew that one of the mall's regulars passed away. It's a reminder that while time has stopped inside the mall, it doesn't stop for the rest of us. The few aging patrons of the Jasper Mall who still shop there will eventually die, the mall will close, and Mike "hopes he can get a job at one of the other malls the owner owns."

Depressing, slow, sad, nostalgic, beautiful.

[Tdarcos]

There is a whole class of people who visit dead or dying malls, and sometimes closed stores and similar places, two I can think of, Bright Sun Films and someone else, excuse me while I go look. This is Dan Bell. There are others, but these two follow the two "golden rules" of honorable mall exploration.

1. Never trespass or break into a place. It's okay to investigate an abandoned place if there aren't any "no trespassing" signs, and you got in through some egress that was unsecured, unlocked or forgotten. You would probably be amazed at the number of places that both of these conditions apply to. Plus if the cops catch you (which sometimes happens), they just have you leave, you haven't done anything illegal.
2. "Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints." If you get caught by the cops, and all you have is lights and cameras, you'll get better treatment since you weren't looting.

[Flack]

There is a third class called 50,000 people on YouTube.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I worked at a mall for a year and a half. I am really glad I had the experience. It made me despise the general public. We had to be "standing" all day at the place, which affected me to the point where I was the only person at my company who did not put in a req for a standing desk when that fad swept corporate America before the pandemic.

I really liked working there in February. I think I got two Februaries and one Christmas Season. The calm quiet that overcame the mall after Christmas Season was amazing. I think the only time I enjoyed working in the mall for the time I was there was the second February. (For the first one, I could not appreciate the quiet. Plus I was learning a new job, which is always this huge goddamn thing.)

I try to go to a mall once per Christmas season. I think I would enjoy going to one out of season now. I don't know about the rest of you, but where I grew up, the mall was where all the awesome things in the universe were.