What, if anything, he learns from the whole experience is difficult to say, given Untitled is ultimately best understood as a visual scrapbook of an unusual summer spent with very rich and funny friends.
From that angle, Untitled can ostensibly be seen as a portrait of a small town trying to weather a pandemic with the help of some familiar faces, but in truth, the narrative is really driven by Chappelle’s own efforts to make sense of the pandemic by going full Field of Dreams. It all serves to emphasize an overarching theme built around the importance of community and togetherness, which is one Chappelle returns to again and again throughout the film. Over the course of the documentary, a number of small business owners in Yellow Springs are also offered brief spotlights. The documentary is not, however, without its powerful moments, including a performance from poet Amir Sulaiman and footage capturing Chappelle’s furious response to the murder of George Floyd in a set filmed ten days after Floyd was killed.
If it sounds anticlimactic, the same can be said for what happens next: a Covid outbreak among Chappelle’s staff that essentially ends his Yellow Springs experiment. This culminates in what is intended to be the film’s climax: A Zoom meeting of local government officials who must decide whether to issue Chappelle’s production a temporary permit. We also watch him engage in an ongoing struggle with the region’s zoning inspector, who threatens to shut the venue down.
To that end, we see Chappelle buy his own equipment and hire nursing staff to make rapid testing available on-site. Largely focused on a series of intimate, outdoor shows that Chappelle hosted during the pandemic last summer in Yellow Springs, Ohio, the film is packed with appearances from other famous comics like Jon Stewart, Chris Rock, and Tiffany Haddish.īalancing footage of the comics’ act with scenes of them bonding together by means of kayaks and kickball games, Untitled goes to great lengths to underscore the logistic challenges that went into pulling off over 50 shows long before a Covid vaccine was available.
Well, having seen Untitled, it’s difficult to ascertain what in this movie could possibly have merited such an effort. He also promised that those who attended would have the chance to “see what they’re trying to obstruct you from seeing.” In an Instagram post announcing his tour, Chappelle claimed that the fervor over his recent special had cost his film a chance to appear at several festivals.