Central Park

After his impressive and far-reaching documentary near death, Frederick Wiseman has apparently chosen a more lighthearted subject: one day in Central Park in New York. Wiseman does not show us the nocturnal, dark and notorious sides of this park, but gives an impression of widely divergent events during the daytime. From a wedding ceremony to a 'dinosaur meeting', from a poetry masterclass to a solitary practitioner of Tai Chi.
Wiseman observes, unstirred, from a distance. He is an onlooker. In the film, Wiseman literally distances himself from the park when he drives downtown in a cab in search of the people and institutions behind the organization of the park.
However, the camera is not as objective as it seems. It selects the subject that we see. Every action that is recorded is designated, almost judged by the film-maker (or is it the spectator's judgement?). Wiseman's product can be regarded as a collection of small documentaries about separate actions, that are all pieces of a complete puzzle. Thus, these individual actions are also meaningful in the film as a whole.
Wiseman takes us along to the Gay Parade, invites us to a bombastic speech by former mayor Koch, and to concerts by Midnight Oil and Domingo. We see lonely joggers, fanatical gardeners, and desperate peace fighters. We take part in heated discussions about an old tennis house, we drink a cocktail with some flashy housewives that seem to claim the supervision of Central Park. Wiseman shows these sequences with a stiff dose of irony.
The strongly varying pastimes of the first part of the documentary make room for the tough business side and the problem of 'fund-raising'. Here, too, 'money' is the word that makes people move. Central park contains one subject that seems to have been shot with more emotion than all the others: the Quilt, the gigantic spread in Central Park with countless names of AIDS victims on it. The ignorance of a few children looking at the beautiful pieces of cloth is in touching contrast with the intense grief a mother expresses for her son.
In his unique style, Frederick Wiseman has produced a refreshing and interpretative film. Central park is a documentary that forces the spectator to look in the mirror, to laugh at himself, and especialy to see the relativity of his actions.