French street photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson coined the expression “the decisive moment” to describe how a photograph captures the essence of a moment in time.
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In Kodachrome, Ben Ryder (Ed Harris) is a world renowned photographer, who believes that photography stops time, providing a way to capture moments collectively to give us a picture of the world at any moment in history.
He contrasts that approach with contemporary digital photography where everyone is a photographer, with more photos being taken than ever before. He laments that, as a result, there aren’t many prints being processed. Photography is stored as data rather than printed images.
Although Ben has a magnificent eye for photography and capturing decisive moments, when it comes to his family, he can’t see what is staring him in the face.
This becomes evident when Ben’s son Matt (Jason Sudeikis) is confronted by Zoe (Elizabeth Olsen), Ben’s nurse and assistant. She informs Matt that Ben is dying, which is not a spoiler because it’s stated clearly as the film begins, and wants Matt to drive him from New York to Kansas to get his final rolls of Kodachrome film developed by the last photographic shop to process Kodachrome.
It is the end an era because Kodak will no longer manufacture or process Kodachrome.
Ben and Matt have been estranged for a decade, so it doesn’t appear anything good can come out of this arrangement.
Ben, Matt and Zoe pack their bags and head off in Ben’s convertible jalopy.
Along the road to Kansas, they visit Ben’s brother in Cleveland and stop in Chicago so Matt, a record company executive, can have a sit-down with a band he needs to sign to his record label to salvage his career.
Kodachrome is a road journey that provides Matt and Ben an opening to redress their differences. The gulf between them seems immense and beyond repair.
The demise of Kodachrome is an appropriate metaphor for photographer Ben’s impending death.
There are moments during the journey that cement Ben and Matt’s connection, define Matt and Zoe’s personal attachment and expose the essence of their longings.
The way in which Matt and Ben reconcile their fraught relationship happens too easily considering the severity of their feelings about one another.
There are two shots that epitomise Ben’s character at the film’s conclusion that could easily have been still photographs. Plus, as a nod to anyone who has worked with Kodachrome, Ektachrome, Tri-X and many other film stocks, and experienced the magic of a photographic darkroom, the producers make a point of noting that Kodachrome was filmed on Kodak 35mm movie film. That’s how it should be.
