"How It All Went Down" is a film that creeps up on you, and stays with you, in a way that's difficult to explain. We are all familiar with the elements of this story..a protagonist strikes a Faustian bargain that proves to be his ultimate downfall. In this case, a young film maker reluctantly turns to drug dealing as an end-run to finance a film project, after his attempts to work within the legitimate, established channels fail. "How It All Went Down" proves the adage that sometimes, it is not so much the story as who's telling it. This story is told so beautifully, and with such passion infused in every frame, that we are swept along with it, despite our sense of deja vu. There's a reason why a literate society continually re-works and re-tells its "myths" and "themes" in operas, books, films and music..it's because these stories resonate with us. In short, it works. And this film works.