Okay. It takes a village to raise a child. Frederick Wiseman takes that point in kind and answers with, "And what if the village has its own problems?" This is not surprising. Wiseman's interest in institutional order always has its disturbing undertones in his documentaries like Titticut Follies and High School, but what I like about this one is that the juvenile court workers all try hard, all try to listen, and all try to help the best they can, and that does not change the fact that for a lot of these kids justice is blind and nobody can really know what to do. In some cases the kids can't help but be talked down to as they bitterly cover the same arguments over and over again, and in others have to be defended against paranoid adults projecting their own traumas and dysfunction onto the kid. The judge tries to get as much information as he can while dealing with case after case after case (and looking more wearied as the movie advances), the social worker tries to be as positive as she can in the light of real pain, and the psychiatrist doesn't know what to make of any of it. Wiseman's right, sounds like the world to me.
Of course, documentary wouldn't be interesting if all the positive and working things were represented, so in some ways this movie could be a little more bleak than the actual court. I think in all fairness to Wiseman, he chose a spectacular and hard-working crew of juvenile court workers where choosing more corrupt and disturbing ones would have made his job easier. That doesn't mean you'll always agree with the judgments handed down on these cases. In many cases, the result is infuriating and scary. However, as a big question mark over just how much a village is even capable of raising its children, this movie is a poignant documentary.
--PolarisDiB
Of course, documentary wouldn't be interesting if all the positive and working things were represented, so in some ways this movie could be a little more bleak than the actual court. I think in all fairness to Wiseman, he chose a spectacular and hard-working crew of juvenile court workers where choosing more corrupt and disturbing ones would have made his job easier. That doesn't mean you'll always agree with the judgments handed down on these cases. In many cases, the result is infuriating and scary. However, as a big question mark over just how much a village is even capable of raising its children, this movie is a poignant documentary.
--PolarisDiB