Public Housing

With such a wide span to its subject, there isn't complete cohesion of all the aspects even in its 200 running time, but unlike Meat (1976), all of them in this environment from the public to the public services interconnect into each other, showing a community that nobly fights against poverty, drugs and other issues on the housing development, revealing a rich living environment to the viewer as well as revealing how much Wiseman is a visual painter as well as a documentalist.

Experiencing the Ida B. Wells public housing development in Chicago through the eyes and ears of Wiseman is confronting, with his usual honesty (and those featured in the film) on full display. This is institutionalised life in all its ugliness and beauty.

I have nothing but the highest respect for what Wiseman does. That said, I rarely fall head over heels for his films, it's more a distanced respect, and I hope one day I'll find a Wiseman film that I can adore. Some of the footage here is heartbreaking and highly revealing, whilst some of it I find a bit tiresome (the contraception scene for example). Still, I realise that everything that is in this film is in it for a reason.