Tonight: The HBO premiere of In a Dream

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Tonight: The HBO premiere of In a Dream

POSTED: Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 6:35 PM

Filed Under: Arts | Movies

The documentary about Isaiah Zagar, Philly's world-renowned mural and glass artist, finally debuts on HBO2 at 8 p.m. tonight. And I haven't met a person yet who doesn't like it. In a Dream, made by Zagar's son Jeremiah, is an intimate look at what it's like to be an artist in this city ' specifically on the once-booming South Street ' as well as how a decades-old relationship can still be exciting and urgent, how mental illness manifests itself, and the artist Zagar himself. Here's what CP's Shaun Brady said about it:

As his son Jeremiah captures in his lovingly clear-eyed doc, Zagar himself dwells in a world apart represented by those detail-filled, tiled walls, but has found himself far less capable of existing in the one he shares with the rest of us. Jeremiah trained his camera on Isaiah at his mother Julia's urging, and even in the early going manages to capture both his warmth and the darker shadings of someone who others may dismiss as an eccentric. The pain reaches even deeper as the story unfolds, however, as the revelation of an affair threatens to splinter the family. The remainder of the film is an almost too-personal peek inside that process, depicted with a tender intimacy perhaps possible only with someone on the inside holding the camera. Jeremiah strikes a delicate balance between empathy and honesty, exposing the family's darkest secrets ' his brother's drug addiction, his father's memories of molestation, attempted suicide and madness ' but never losing sight of their basic humanity.

Check out more on the film here, as well as in this recent piece by The New York Times.

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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