The Triangle

Issue date: 4/17/09 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Jeremiah Zagar

Gustav Mahler, an Austrian composer, once said: "A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything."

Removed from a musical context, there's a bigger implication inside of the quote- the questing nature of a restless creative spirit. Isaiah Zagar, an obsessive mosaic artist, is a striking example of this type. The Zagar family is a local fixture in the Bohemian neighborhood of South Philadelphia, enunciated by a seasoned neighborhood diaspora as "Souf Filly."

"In A Dream" is a personal documentary directed by Jeremiah Zagar. The documentary chronicles Isaiah's dissolving relationship with his wife, coming to a breaking point when he has an affair with a female assistant. Isaiah's second son Ezekiel concurrently has his own problems - the divorce from his wife, Tanya, and a trip to rehab for drug addiction. It could be argued that Jeremiah is too close to the subject, his father and the family surroundings. It continues, as Isaiah admits to his suicide attempt at 29 and sexual abuse as a child. Jeremiah's treatment of his family life is claustrophobic - a litany of ills.

Results, however, speak for themselves. The funny and tender private moments are spare, but redeeming, alongside the anguished cataclysms. In one particular scene, Isaiah asks his son to join the family for dinner. Jeremiah decides to leave the camera rolling, a luxury easily affordable with digital HD video. He walks out from behind the camera and sits down for dinner. In another moment inside the car, Julia screams at her husband, "I want to vomit." She is unable to bear his betrayal. His vow as an artist to "touch, feel and experience" do not reconcile with his marriage vows.

Isaiah is a freaky hippie beardo, fully absorbed in his work, at the exclusion of his family. Sometimes he forgets to eat. In reality, his absent husband and father routine is a wan sight when compared to his behemoth mosaic works. The members of his family recur most often in the work, filed somewhere in-between madness and alienation. Isaiah says he is "fascinated by giganticness" and admits to "searching for encounter, the mysterium compendium in everything. Everything."

In a fundamental way, the documentary shares lineage with a Charlie Kaufman film, "Synecdoche, New York," released in 2008. Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is overwhelmed by fitting the whole world inside the work, without scaling it down - without compromise.

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