IWOW: I Walk On Water

By night, the streets of Harlem are filled with lost souls. Bodies floating in the dark and carrying the weight of the past on their shoulders. Frenchie, a Haitian man, is one of them, the product of years of wandering and humiliation. In his hypnotic film Khalik Allah, who began his career as a photographer for the Wu-Tang Clan, takes the American tradition of street photography to a new artistic level. His portrayal of the inhabitants of New York’s mean streets is more reminiscent of religious painting than socially conscious art (his closest Russian counterpart is Artur Aristakisyan). For Allah, who is half Iranian and half Jamaican, Frenchie is not simply a victim of oppression, but a symbol of spiritual strength and purity. Shot on 8 mm, 16 mm and video and clocking in at 200 minutes, IWOW /em>is edited like a hip hop mixtape, putting the viewer in a trance whether they start watching from the beginning or the middle of the film. This personal manifesto has become an unwitting response to the Black Lives Matter movement, and understands the word black to stand primarily for spiritual experience.