Many documentaries feel like visual political editorials, while others feel like tightly-honed magazine articles. But Foreign Parts feels entirely unique, like the raw notes from an extensive New York Times feature that hasn’t yet been written. Foreign Parts is about New York enclave of immigrant laborers working in junkyards doomed to be torn down for a new development in Queens. There’s no explicit point or focus more than mere “about.” This is a documentary purely about setting — never narrative or character or theme. In fact, it barely feels ordered or edited at all. The camera languishes on long shots of slums, litter, standing water and grime. It subtitles the Hebrew and Spanish we hear from the workers — but only sporadically. There’s no voiceover narration or ironic scene juxtapositions. Foreign Parts is farthest away you could ever get from Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock’s slick smirks. Foreign Parts unpolished rawness, however, is its strength. It’s immersive. You feel the oil underneath your fingernails and puddles of dirty water lapping at your ankle. You feel there. Not there to learn something. There to just be. (USA | 81 mins) Read our story about this