City Hall 2020 / A massive four-hour-plus account of the ecosystem of local government in Boston

From the sheer size of Frederick Wiseman’s documentaries (both in length and scope), it should be clear that his goal isn’t necessarily to have us retain every piece of information he gives us in all of this film’s board meetings and press conferences. This is a film interested in the macro view of how a city works, and Wiseman’s attention to detail even in his old age (he’s 94 at the time of writing this) is truly inspiring for any aspiring documentarian. City Hall doesn’t necessarily tell us anything we might not already know about the coordination between a local government unit and its constituents and citizens, but Wiseman gets us to think of the grand design of it all—which is both wondrous and horrifying to behold.