I Had Nowhere to Go

What it conveys is not so much Mr. Mekas’s experience as Mr. Gordon’s will, and his cheap sadistic hostility to the audience. It makes this film a vexed experience.

Mekas, who has built his career on recording his memories, seems like the ideal subject for Gordon. It’s just that Nowhere to Go is unilluminating; it doesn’t have the theoretical puckishness of 24 Hour Psycho or Zidane. I Had Nowhere to Go might prove more effective as an installation piece, where people can drift in and out at intervals, but as a 100-minute film, it’s just tedious.