This is not a review but a love letter to a special place and my dream job that disappeared.
As someone born in the late 90s it was very unusual for me to witness VHS rental in video stores since DVDs have been around aswell, i guess it's one of the perks of living in a third world country left behind in tech and a poor neighbourhood.
Back when i was 5, my father used to take me to a local video store and leave me there for a whole day sitting with the clerk behind the counter until he comes back from work, and those shared moments have created my love for his job :
Being discustingly educated about films and recommending them to your clients based on what they feel was a greater responsibility than being a doctor doing an open heart surgery to me at the time.
Organizing tapes by category and printing a catalog with each poster to improve the navigation experience was very fun to see, so basically that was by dream job as a kid.
At home, we had a VCR player that I've been using to watch films on VHS that i rent from that same store, films that the clerk recommended that are mostly 80s Kung fu, fantasy and french and Japanese animation.
I still have some tapes that i havent returned yet such as René Laloux's "les maîtres du temps" that was too complex for me at the time but i grew up to appreciate it much more after rewatching it recently.
Sadly, the video store was closed in the mid 2000s and turned to a barbershop, i still look at the place with joy and nostalgia everytime i pass by.
I don't know what happened to the Clerk, i only know that his name is Saber and he should be in his late 50s by now. I hope he's doing fine and i want to thank him for the good times and apologize for the tapes that i haven't returned yet.
Also, the passion grew with me so i've been collecting physical media for years now and i would love to make a similar place one day.
This is not a review but a love letter to a special place and my dream job that disappeared.
As someone born in the late 90s it was very unusual for me to witness VHS rental in video stores since DVDs have been around aswell, i guess it's one of the perks of living in a third world country left behind in tech and a poor neighbourhood.
Back when i was 5, my father used to take me to a local video store and leave me there for a whole day sitting with the clerk behind the counter until he comes back from work, and those shared moments have created my love for his job :
Being discustingly educated about films and recommending them to your clients based on what they feel was a greater responsibility than being a doctor doing an open heart surgery to me at the time.
Organizing tapes by category and printing a catalog with each poster to improve the navigation experience was very fun to see, so basically that was by dream job as a kid.
At home, we had a VCR player that I've been using to watch films on VHS that i rent from that same store, films that the clerk recommended that are mostly 80s Kung fu, fantasy and french and Japanese animation.
I still have some tapes that i havent returned yet such as René Laloux's "les maîtres du temps" that was too complex for me at the time but i grew up to appreciate it much more after rewatching it recently.
Sadly, the video store was closed in the mid 2000s and turned to a barbershop, i still look at the place with joy and nostalgia everytime i pass by.
I don't know what happened to the Clerk, i only know that his name is Saber and he should be in his late 50s by now. I hope he's doing fine and i want to thank him for the good times and apologize for the tapes that i haven't returned yet.
Also, the passion grew with me so i've been collecting physical media for years now and i would love to make a similar place one day.
