Sep 16

Sep 16 TIFF 2020 film review: 'City Hall'

Director Frederick Wiseman makes long documentaries - and his streak is unbroken with 'City Hall' (screening at the 45th Toronto International Film Festival), the four-and-a-half hour examination of all matters related to municipal government.

In short: A look at Boston's city government, covering racial justice, housing, climate action, and more.

First, the good news: 'City Hall' is a comprehensive crash course in city government. Wiseman leaves no stone unturned in this look at city management - from figuring out basic event logistics to listening to the concerns of Boston citizens. This the definitive, observational cinema look at the practical and boots-on-the-ground level of democracy in action.

The fact that any documentary is four and a half hours long is, in and of itself, not an issue. If the content justifies a 100-hour documentary, then fine - so be it, make that film. But when the film sits in on a press conference with city officials discussing plans for a Red Sox championship parade, there's simply no need for any crafted, intentional and edited film to include the Transit Police chief repeating the exact same information as the mayor and Boston police commissioner. It makes sense that the real-time, live press conference would need to stress an important message to the citizens - but no film should make its audience sit through the same exact information over and over and over.

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Wiseman's latest film has obvious outright contempt for anything resembling disciplined editing. Each section is essentially just some speaker addressing a small internal city meeting or larger community meeting ... and just talking. Sometimes it's one talking point. Sometimes it's a few. Then 'City Hall' cuts away to a series of skyline shots of the city ... followed by a completely unrelated segment. There's literally no transitions between segments - there's some observational sanitation work, Boston skyline b-roll, then a Red Sox parade, more Boston skyline b-roll, followed by Latinx engagement meeting.

The fact that 'City Hall' is pretty disjointed actually makes this documentary very easy to stop-and-start. The sum of the documentary's parts is overwhelming - but each small section is a fascinating, bit-sized insight into the daily and routine inner workings of running a city. When/if 'City Hall' hits a major streaming service, it will be a very easy film to start, put down and pick up again.

This critique of 'City Hall' cannot be brushed off as 'reviewer just doesn't have the attention span for long-form documentaries.' On the contrary: Wiseman's previous documentary about the New York Public Library was the best documentary of 2017. And 'Ex Libris' shares a lot of DNA with 'City Hall' - both are super-sized documentaries, both are pretty free-form and neither has a discernible structure and certainly no plot. 'Ex Libris' weighs in at an intimidating 3 hours, yet it manages to string together a series of loosely connected vignettes that all tie into one thesis: showing the critical value of libraries as institutions serving their communities. Each segment directly tied into how this one building betters the community and its citizens. 'Ex Libris' is focused in its scope - 'City Hall' tries to do too much. Listening to a discussion of race-related wage inequality is fascinating - watching a municipal road crew lay down thermoplastic on top of asphalt ... is the opposite of fascinating. Yes, it's a function of city government - but one that doesn't exactly lend itself to visually compelling cinema.

If the purpose of film reviews is to recommend or dissuade people from watching a given film, then it's difficult to recommend 'City Hall' in good faith. At the very least, it's difficult to recommend 'City Hall' as a theatrical experience. It's too easy to glaze over and start thinking about your grocery shopping list or errands that need to be run during any of the fly-on-the-wall meetings. This documentary should be treated as a multi-episode series rather than one behemoth of a documentary. There's literally nothing lost in watching this film in segments: there's no artistic or intentional juxtaposition or flow that is inherent to the sequence or order of segments. It's just information. Useful information and essential information - but not inherently captivating information.

Final verdict: Watch this omnibus documentary in pieces - or just watch a cable access rebroadcast of a local city council meeting. Actually, at least the city council meeting has an itinerary and flow. So yes, 'City Hall' is less entertaining and less essential than watching an actual city council meeting.