MONROVIA, INDIANA: Humor & Absurdity From The Fly On The Wall

The people of Monrovia, Indiana bicker at an impasse. How can they grow their community without forfeiting its provincial mores, without succumbing to the encroaching pressure to expand? The threat level is imperceptible and discussed – in no rush- over endless board meetings at the Monrovia Municipal Center. The meetings conclude in deadlock and the town goes about its days with no eyesore on its pastures.

Fairness in Sincerity

As the days go regular here, and the land is sown, venerated documentarian Frederick Wiseman evokes the calcified Monrovia in all its idle wonder, eschewing the form’s usual narration and talking heads for close and far observations and suggestive cuts and sound editing. He ties the town together with shots of local shops and meadows, rarely cutting from one space to another without first showing us what landmarks sit between. We’re doubtful of another reference point, and no choice but to absorb the given cartography.

In spite of traditional documentary ethics, Wiseman doesn’t stray from using his position behind the lens to laugh at his subjects. At the tractor auction at the Monroe County Fair, he ferrets out any sleeping attendees with his telephoto lens. But just as often Wiseman’s laughing along with them, making pitstops for anecdotes and banter between old pals.  All is fairer in sincerity.

But who and what is this new Wiseman joint for? Leftist cinephiles yearning for an imaginary friend on the right? The studied people of Monrovia, Indiana yearning to see themselves reflected back on a screen (even the studied people of Monrovia will feel the film’s pace)? Or is it just for the Wiseman niche wishing to revel again in the master’s unraveling shape and unreproducible point of view? I can come to no better justification. His craft, alone, supplies the reason.

Only in a Wiseman film could you witness the gratuitous tail docking (scalpel, blood, chunks, scissors, and all) of an anesthetized dog at the local vet beside an arrangement of consumers tossing atop bare mattresses at the mattress store. Only in his work has the banal felt so meant and fundamental. A Free Masons award ceremony goes on – in a mostly unbroken long take – far too long for the tedium to go unquestioned. And as we bare witness to the people of Monrovia contemplating their grocery lists, getting identical haircuts, and going about their regular commerce, Wiseman proves that an impartial perspective is not incapable of taste, absurdity, or humor.

The hard and obvious politics of Monrovia have no place in Wiseman’s palette, which prefers to make room for an equitable portrait of conservative ethos. It has even evaded its vocabulary. Through this omission, the values have been pushed forward and all the fuss pulled under. It won’t show these folks attending gun rallies, but it’ll show them hunkered over the counter at the gun shop yapping to their fellow, and perusing bumper stickers at the art fair that announce their equipment and remind passerby of their right to carry it. So long as the actions remain local and quotidian, with the potential to bore, there is room for it here.

The slow cook and meagerness of Monrovia’s most urgent affairs assume the majority of his fixations. The Monrovia municipality is asked to consider the prospects of new housing and new business and the response is variable grades of guarded suspicion, folded arms, huffs and puffs, casual pouting, basically. Should the town’s Lions Club install a bench at the library and how much money should be allotted to do so? The club debates this. We get to watch it. A Minister exhorting to his funeral audience describes heaven no bigger than a mansion and the individual’s place in it a room. A renown NCAA basketball coach, an IndyCar racer, and a retired NFL Wide receiver with zero touchdowns comprise the town’s all time notable alumni.  

Conclusion: Monrovia, Indiana

So, if Monrovia, Indiana feels like slight Wiseman – the documentary runs shorter than his recent three hour plus outings at just two hours and twenty three – perhaps that’s meant. The mild, the boring, and the moderately amusing takes precedence over any grander scheme. I yearned for a sweep that’d run through it, some affecting line of discovery that’d capitalize on the aesthetic mundanity, but it always came back to one. It’d start and end on its director’s technique and never soared off to become his subjects. It sidles in self-reflexive limbo, content with itself, never evoking superiority, just a marginal lethargy towards its study. If only Monrovia, Indiana went farther, neglected its blanched attic & sawdust sex appeal for once, and licked the old grit off for a revelatory sheen.

How does Monrovia, Indiana compare to the rest of Wiseman’s work? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!

Monrovia, Indiana will be released in the theaters in the US in October 25, 2018. For all international release dates, see here. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xddh70XyDTw