These days, it’s hard to think clearly about the Los Angeles River. Once the lifeline of the city and, before that, the Tongva people, the river was paved in the early 20th century following a series of devastating floods and then – at least according to a well-worn narrative – forgotten by the public.
After years of potamic amnesia, or so the story goes, Los Angeles suddenly remembered its river, finding in the thin stream a possible answer to both its growing thirst and perpetual identity crises. Now, nobody seems to talk about much else besides “our forgotten river”. In a sense, the LA River is the ecological inverse of Kim Kardashian: famous for being not-famous.
Of course, endless editorializing belies this apparent obscurity. It wasn’t just Frank Gehry’s arrival that heralded the return of the LA River to public attention, or the concatenation of activists and designers that preceded him. In a way, it had never really been forgotten at all. After all, the river has appeared in Hollywood classics, from Grease to the Italian Job, and countless music videos and commercials – not to mention serving as an integral part of the daily lives of many Angeleños, such as the residents of nearby Boyle Heights or Skid Row.
The problem was that, in these cases, the river appears as itself ....
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Flash forward to late last year, when the LA Forum hosted an event to mark the closing of the Sixth Street Viaduct including a video screening curated by Jai & Jai Gallery. In just six weeks and with virtually no budget, Gharnasi whipped together the short with King Monster providing the narration. With its slick production value, you’d never guess the film was under-funded or quickly-realized.
