Memphis

[Willis’s] heavy trudge on a game leg suggests weariness of historical dimensions; the harmonious mysteries of the urban landscape are themselves the essence of his art. A brilliant sequence of musicians at work gets away from familiar modes of filmed performance and into the depths of inner experience.

A digressive, daringly experimental study of a flailing musician, magnetically played by accomplished bluesman and poet Willis Earl Beal.

The film's music is the city itself as well as a subtle suggestion that Tim Sutton's own digital cinema is just as elusive and intangible as Willis's unwavering sense of dissatisfaction.

Constantly just dodging visual cliché, Sutton tries to isolate moments of beauty and frustration within a specific milieu. Sometimes he captures resonant moments in bars and in stray dialogue; other times, his purposelessness seems less like a strategy and more like an evasive feint.

Ultimately, Memphis is a bold and bewildering conjuring act, that might mean nothing at all, but the sleight of hand is worth the price of admission.

The film feels like a sketch rather than a portrait, beautifully rendered but incomplete in the details.

The filmmaker’s second feature is an unfortunate sophomore slump, an abrasive and opaque artist-in-crisis story that feels protracted at barely 80 minutes.