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“Frederick Wiseman’s new film may just change the way you look at small-town America.” – The Washington Post
Between the bright lights of Los Angeles and the big city of New York lies the ‘real’ America. It’s the Land of the Free, centred on family, farming, God, sports and guns. It’s the thousand citizens of Monrovia.
Master observer Frederick Wiseman creates an absorbing portrait of contemporary small-town America, shot handsomely by his Emmy-winning regular cinematographer John Davey. We see civic process and veterinary procedures, worshippers in churches and jokers in diners, pizza cooks and tattooists and freemasons. We see weddings and funerals. We see community.
Quietly perceptive but never moralising, Monrovia, Indiana emerges as another gleaming tile in Wiseman’s expansive mosaic of American life – his first shot in the rural Midwest. Shorter than his recent offerings, such as Ex Libris (MIFF 2018) and In Jackson Heights (MIFF 2016), but no less epic in ambition, it remains as expressive and enjoyable a portrait as anything the renowned documentarian has done.
“Wiseman documents life, from cradle to grave, in a politically urgent and necessary look at the American Midwest with absolutely no judgement. Monrovia, Indiana is nothing short of a masterpiece.” – One Room with a View
