A Man Imagined (2024)

A Man Imagined

The beginning of A Man Imagined is made up of simple images of nature. The tranquility is soon interrupted, however, with shots and sounds of traffic the harsh reality of urban life. Lloyd enters from here as our guide to the strange oppositions and contradictions of being homeless in Montreal.

This is the most recent nonfiction work by Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky, who are known for taking on genre filmmaking in experimental ways. In this case, they present us with an ambiguous portrait of Lloyd, a man who clearly still wrestles with demons as he tries to navigate the streets and seasons of the city.

The film does not seem to have any structure at all; much like Lloyd’s life itself. He picks things up off the street a broken coffee machine, a toy horse, bright pink curtains and tries to sell them to passersby; many people aren’t interested in what he’s selling but give him some change anyway.

These moments of observation are punctuated by intense snowstorms that show us just how hard it is for Lloyd to battle against the elements. Cassidy and Shatzky sharply shift gears from quiet observation to Lloyd’s dark mumbles about his past lives to poetry: At one point, Lloyd stops at a grill spewing what looks like exhaust from a clothes dryer; he takes it in, relishes the heat. He walks past mannequins wearing elaborate wedding dresses uniforms for celebrations of a gleaming future while a truck drives by with an enormous ad for an immaculate kitchen on its side.

Then there’s this central mystery: What happened to Lloyd? What’s his story? Cassidy and Shatzky ask a series of questions themselves. His parents were murdered, he insists though it becomes unclear whether or not this is something he has imagined after further inquiry into his past. He has slept in dumpsters before, he tells us, showing a faded tattoo as he says he got an STD from his girlfriend. He reveals that he has ripped out much of the hair on his head. Lloyd’s coping mechanisms seem questionable at best: “What makes you happy?” he is asked. “Talking to a person,” he responds.

It’s easy to see Cassidy and Shatzky’s strengths as filmmakers here: They offer none of the prescriptive bromides so often associated with documentaries about homelessness. Rather than simplifying things with poverty porn, they show us hopelessness confusion.

A moment of beauty when Lloyd sleeps outside in nature and a squirrel visits him is soon disrupted by worms crawling on his mattress. A Man Imagined elicits the ephemeralness of life itself. When asked how he would like to be remembered, Lloyd answers without hesitation: “I don’t want to be remembered. I had a hard life.”

This is a chilling punctuation mark for an agonizing film. A Man Imagined succeeds because it does not try to solve this mystery or any other mystery for that matter; like many people living on the street or moving shelter-to-shelter, Lloyd’s existence is all about social failure combined with personal agony and mental health. The movie’s beauty lies in its ambiguity as well as strength.

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