Another invisibly etched documentary — this one clocking in at a platter-bowing 272 minutes — in which the king of all non-fiction filmmakers, Frederick Wiseman, once again proves himself worthy of the title. (The antithesis of the celebrity documentarian, Wiseman never once crosses paths with the camera.) This time around, the American Institution put under Wiseman’s microscopic gaze is Boston’s city government. A good deal of the film entails the inner workings that went into putting together the city’s $3.3 billion budget, but there’s much more to the story than board meetings and speechifying. The film runs in refreshing opposition to what of late has passed for governance in America. Forgive my shoveling Capra-corn, but it’s a stirring civics lesson, a film that reflects on what goes right when the government works for us. Wiseman bestows the same eye for detail on World Series parade prep as he does watching a sanitation truck devouring a mattress and box spring. Before this movie, I knew nothing about Mayor Marty Walsh; the nicest wish I could send anyone’s way is that they have a portrait in their honor that’s half as galvanizing, half as sympathetic as the one Wiseman affords hizzoner. The idiom, “You can’t fight City Hall” has never been put to truer use than when recommending this irresistible, albeit lengthy, masterwork. See it at the Digital Gym Virtual Cinema: virtually at https://digitalgym.org/city-hall/ (2020) — Scott Marks
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