Review of Bomb It (2007) by Kevin M — 24 Apr 2009

Street art is a form I used to pay more attention to before I completely ran out of the level of free time needed to follow it. The documentary is valuable in the themes it discusses and the wide variety of artists it involves. There are graffiti artists from North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia (I can't remember whether or not there were Aussies). The variety of styles presented from around the world is worth the view.

The documentary will fall flat for many because the interviews are similarly structured so it gets repetitive quickly. The historical background gets little mention and the way that its presented will leave the viewer with a false impression about the very complex history of street art/graffiti. Also the documentary focuses almost exclusively on tagging and bombing while the true street artists are given very little attention. This is not a film that gets into the aesthetics of graffiti. It doesn't bother to distinguish between the slop some punk from the ghetto tosses on a wall in a few seconds and the aesthetically virtuous works that are a part of the evolving history of fine art (e.g. Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Blek le Rat, Elbowtoe, Judith Supine, Swoon, etc.).