Frederick Wiseman is the Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker who rose to prominence in the late 1960's. He was put on the map with his
Titicut Follies (1967), a searing look at a mental institution in Massachusetts, Wiseman's home state. He's worked steadily for over 50 years. Due to his style and sensibilities, his films tend to be long. His film about Boston's Beth Israel Hospital called
Near Death (1989) was 358 minutes in length or about six hours in its running time, which might be his longest film to date. Every film he's made since has been about 150 minutes or so. This film though nearly doubles that amount of time and is a luxuriating 270 minutes, which is over four and a half hours in running time. Now, normally, I wouldn't mention the length of a film unless it was a problem for me, which in this case it was. It's not that I have an issue with lengthy films. In fact, one of my all time favorite films was the documentary
A Lion in the House (2006), which was 225 minutes or about four hours. It was broadcast on PBS, but I saw it in a theater at Philadelphia's film festival that year and I was riveted from beginning to end. I wasn't as riveted with this.
I haven't seen any of Wiseman's recent films, so I can't speak to how it relates to what he's been doing within the past decade or so. I would imagine that his efforts here are a continuation of what he's been doing and this probably doesn't represent anything radically different from how he's put together his most recent, if not all of his films. If so, then a fan of his work will probably be satisfied with this film. Unfortunately, I was mostly bored. The film is about the City of Boston and what occurs inside this film's titular building. Mainly, it follows the mayor of Boston, that of Mayor Marty Walsh and those in his administration. This mostly includes having Wiseman's cameras attend various meetings where we'll listen to members who work for the city talk about various issues concerning social justice or mainly points of business.
What I found boring is that these meetings go on for way too long. Wiseman doesn't like to edit these meetings down to what would be the bare essentials. These meetings drone on and on and on, to the point where it literally starts to feel like it's just background noise. The topics of conversation are at times interesting and the people involved seem concerned with advancing an agenda that includes doing more to help minority groups like African-American, Latino, Asian, LGBTQ and the disabled. There's also specific concern for the elderly. In general, there is a definite push for diversity in how the city represents itself and diversity in who the city targets for assistance.
Unfortunately, it's all talk. It's one city official after another talking about what they plan to do or what could or might happen. A lot of those plans involve helping the aforementioned minorities, but, at the end of the day, it's just talk. There isn't much here about what the city has actually done. There are glimpses of the city doing something. Those things include lengthy vignettes of a garbage truck and the men on it collecting trash. There's a lengthy vignette of a fire truck responding to a practical non-blaze. There's a lengthy vignette of a road crew repaving a street. While these things are necessary functions of the city and a lot of these things could be taken for granted, seeing these things done could have some inherent value, but Wiseman's lengthy depictions of these things drag the film and only comes across as boring.
By virtue of covering a vast array of things, Wiseman's documentary feels unfocused. Again, cumulatively one could say that the focus is on how Boston is helping minorities and impoverished people in areas, such as homelessness, housing, medical care and other economic opportunities. Yet, again, it's all talk. Actual help or lack thereof isn't depicted here. Being about rhetoric is effective for something like Steve James'
City So Real (2020) because that five-hour documentary is about the 2019 mayoral election in Chicago and for a political candidate often rhetoric is all they have until in office. Here, it seems that it's still all about rhetoric and not about really doing anything. Unless that's Wiseman's point here!
Rated TV-PG.
Running Time: 4 hrs. and 34 mins.
Available on VOD.
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