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Iconic documentarian Frederick Wiseman (La Danse, MIFF 2010; Titicut Follies) returns with a fascinating look at the tight-knit world of a suburban boxing gym.
Battered equipment is held together with tape; posters peel from the walls. Muscled, youthful wannabes spar alongside doughy, middle-aged has-beens. This former warehouse garage in a rundown suburb of Austin, Texas, is a melting pot of ethnicities, genders and ages, all obsessed with the 'sweet science'.
Wiseman's 38th documentary takes us inside the two-fisted community of R. Lord's Boxing Gym, where camaraderie often wins out over competition. But there are no punches pulled when opponents step into the ring for fight-night bouts.
"There's no disputing... the influence that [Wiseman's] epic observational style has had on fiction filmmakers as far-flung as Jia Zhangke (Platform), David Simon (The Wire), and even Scorsese himself." - Village Voice
D/P Frederick Wiseman WS Doc & Film TD digibeta/2010