The epitome of a slice-of-life documentary! Jasper Mall offers such straightforward Middle America vibes that anyone who's never left the big city they grew up in might find this pretty alien. It's so low key, so go-with-the-flow, so "real time" feeling that it manages a dreamlike quality. Of course, the dreamlike pace also comes from the disciplined editing, the reflective ambient score, and the beautiful photography. There is an endearing quality to this doc, but also an underlying melancholy all the way through.

I think the average person would think "nothing happens in this movie", but that's beside the point. What it comes down to is: I never thought I would see malls become a thing of the past in my entire lifetime. Now, suddenly, we're here, and slowly, one by one, they're gonna start shutting down. What's the primary reason for this? Amazon, of course. Where did I watch this movie? On Amazon (Prime Video) - how meta is that?

The fact that this was shot in 2019, the year before the pandemic hit, also adds another element of surrealism to the viewing experience. It's almost like a precursor to the vacant vibes we were about to face. It makes you wonder - is the pandemic really expediting the obsoletion of so many things that we've been accustomed to our whole lives, as much as we think it is? Or, would most of this be happening soon any way?

In the end, I don't think you will walk away from Jasper Mall remembering many of the specific scenes for the rest of your life, maybe none of them at all, but it's an equally comforting and eerie thing to watch in our current state (nearly one year into the COVID-19 pandemic). It floats in this strange limbo between nostalgic warmth and dystopian apathy. It's a tasteful doc - subtle but with great purpose.

Jasper Mall was an entertaining look into the life of a mall. It's both heartwarming and tragic. As a child of the 80s, I spent much of my adolescence in malls like Jasper Mall making friends, hanging out in the food courts and the arcades, and just spending time there. So when I began watching this documentary, it brought me back to a time and place in my youth who's memory put a big smile on my face. At the same time, I was saddened and heartbroken by the fact that these places are disappearing. They weren't just places for shopping. Malls were where you met your first love, where you went on your first date, where you met your best friends, where you made so many memories, and they're going away because American culture has changed. Jasper Mall is a time capsule for the future, where one day we will look back and say "remember when we used to go to the mall?" It's a both a story of a mall as a physical entity but also as a reference point in the lives of all these invdividuals and their personal stories, from the Zookeeper turnded security and custodian, to Robin the retiring florist, and young starry-eyed interracial couple, the old men playing dominos, the tattooed hair stylist who wants to escape Jasper to do great things in her life. They all have personal stories and they're all part of the life and times of Jasper Mall.

Unlike the semi popular 'Dead Mall' series from the likes of Bright Sun Films and others YouTube Channels that goes into great detail the history of the titular shopping centers from its humble beginnings to its painful demise. This documentary directed by Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb didn't really give much of any educational, scientific or historical value for the audience to look over. The documentary doesn't show much of any of the staff talking about the negative impact that online shopping has done to the mall nor was there any information about why their two anchors stores K-Mart and JC Penney left before the movie started. The filmmakers don't even give key data like where this mall is even located. It would had been nice to know that one of the reasons why the mall in Jasper, Alabama is having trouble keeping afloat is the fact that it's located on US 78 North, far away enough from big cities like Birmingham and even further east from its prime city. Furthermore, one of the main causes that the shopping center get overlooked is because after the completion of interstate 1-22. It moves much of the major traffic away from the mall. To add onto the mess, the shopping center itself sits in a predominately rural mountainous forest area with barely any locals due to the location's violent tornado patterns and borderline economic poverty problems. Another thing that the film doesn't point out is how many times, the mall went through foreclosure and who currently owns it. I assuming that Kohan Retail Investment Group still own the property, but who knows. None of these questions were answer or explained in this documentary. Truth be hold; the filmmakers only gave the viewer a few glimpses that something was a bit off about the Jasper mall. Such examples are the amazing analogically-like footage where mostly elderly customers order funeral flowers, play dominos in an empty food court, sing contradicting gospel music and unable to connect with modern technology. It really does symbolic representative, this dying mall's detachment with the more common younger online driven patrons. The absence of youth culture throughout the film is really alarming; seeing how in the 1980s & 1990s, malls would be the ultimate hangout spot for children, while older people were more interested in local ma & pa's downtown stores. The roles had changed here and it's somewhat surreal. Instead of expanding those key moments a little more to fit the overall narrative of the shopping center creeping closer to its own demise. The movie took a sharp right turn into focusing on nearly unrelated issues. One such example is the filmmaker's request in telling a teen couple's story about the struggles of starting an interracial relationship in the deep south. While their tale was somewhat interesting. Race relations doesn't really connect with the overall mall narrative at all. There weren't any signs of the shopping center being chauvinistic. If there were some underlying racism, the film didn't show it. After all the mall was alright with having children of minorities sit on Santa Claus' lap. Added to that, the couple are not really employees nor persistent shoppers at the mall. They really looked out of place. A good example of this was their appearance in the food court toward the end of the film. That moment felt awkwardly staged reenactment as they look like they secretly have no clue why they agreed to meet there rather than at home texting. It's seemed out of character for them to interact at that location. To tell you the truth, the movie would have work better if the filmmakers focus more on the life of the teenager custodian. As his story relates to what's going on with the mall. Sadly, that subplot was abandoned. Another story that seems to go nowhere was the nail saloon lady. We never did find out if she left her job and travel the world. Maybe the movie should have focus on that, rather than wasting film footage on the manager/security guard's Mike McClelland romanticizing his past job as a Tiger King type zookeeper. While this was never uttered in the film. The mall does love to host Jungle Safaris events even after they been cited numerous times by the USDA. The reasons why are because it didn't meet minimum federal standards for the care of animals in captivity that was established by the Animal Welfare Act. Because of that and other controversial events like selling hand held weapons in order to increase foot traffic. The mall is viewed as being notorious passe than modern. You can tell by the look of the shopping center. The mall had not been remodeled since it opened in 1981. The lack of people around with the incandescent lighting makes the antique layout of the location look really haunting. There are long shots where the camera lingers on shots of the empty location with nothing really going on. While some people might think of that as boring. I kinda like the petrifying nostalgia feel, those visuals give. It's surprising more riveting than watching highly staged moments where people ruin shots by staring straight at the camera as they talk to other people. That was annoying because it ruins the illusion of observation that the movie was trying to build. Nevertheless, the music that went along with the film was well used. The collection of songs by the musicians HAHA Mart, Chayse Porter and Baker Knight were easy on the ears. Overall: to close shop. This documentary is not quite good enough to be putting on your shopping list. It's only good for a quick browse.