State Legislature.

"Opening at Anthology Film Archives this Friday, the hypnotic, beautiful State Legislature clocks in at nearly four captivating hours. It's another seminal entry in [Frederick] Wiseman's lifelong project of depicting the inner lives of American institutions, and it's also a remarkable affirmation of the 78-year-old filmmaker's continuing relevance and creativity." Bilge Ebiri talks with "the legendary documentarian" for New York.

"State Legislature is an impeccably constructed illustration in depth, ceaselessly alert and cumulatively profound," writes Nathan Lee in the Voice. "Given the subject, spells of monotony are to be expected; vital as they are, the mechanics of workaday democracy lack the obvious dramatic voltage of, say, Domestic Violence (2001). Given the particular tenacious genius of Wiseman, however, even the most listless passages here (water policy, zzzz...) produce unexpected sparks."

"Shot during the 2004 legislative session (and on 16-millimeter film), the 217-minute documentary constitutes the latest chapter in Mr Wiseman's decades-long inquiry into American institutions from schools to prisons, an inquiry that is at once a detailed and expansive vision of a modern bureaucratic state and its people," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "This is democracy in action from the ground up, wholly unheroic and absolutely mesmerizing."

Posted by dwhudson at February 22, 2008 10:27 AM