In Jackson Heights

Frederick Wiseman's 2015 documentary is about the Jackson Heights neighbourhood in Queens, New York. The district is considered one of the most linguistically diverse places in the world, with more than a hundred and sixty languages and many immigrant communities sharing the same streets. As always Wiseman uses no narrator and no interviews. The camera waits in a synagogue, a mosque, an LGBT association meeting, a taxi driver training course and a butcher's shop. The only connection between these places is geography. The film's political centre is gentrification. Small traders try to organise against rising rents and the arrival of large chains, and those meetings make up its longest sections. Wiseman shows here how tiring and slow a business democracy is. Who it's for: those who love observational documentary and urban sociology. Who it's not for: viewers with no tolerance for a running time over three hours and a narrative without plot.