Four Hours at the Capitol

On 6 January 2021, thousands of people came to Washington to protest the result of the 2020 election. In the afternoon part of the crowd walked to the Capitol, went over the barriers and got inside. For the next four hours the members of Congress sitting in the building hid, the police were outnumbered, and reinforcements were late. Jamie Roberts's documentary reconstructs those four hours minute by minute. The material is almost entirely footage shot that day: security cameras, police body cameras, the crowd's own phone recordings and live streams. Over that are laid interviews with people who went in, with police officers and with members of Congress. What is notable is that the film gives the floor directly to people who were in the crowd. Two sides describing the same event in completely different terms are set side by side. Who it's for: Anyone interested in American politics, crowd dynamics, and documentaries that reconstruct an event. Who it's not for: The footage contains violence, and the context around causes is limited. The film tells you what happened, not why.