Director: Frederick Wiseman
Rating: 4/5
At Berkeley is a movie that I was able to catch at the BFI London Film Festival in 2013, nearly a year later, and the film is hitting the big screen.
Directed by Frederick Wiseman, At Berkeley is a documentary film about the University of California at Berkeley, the oldest and most prestigious member of a ten-campus public education system and one of the finest research and teaching facilities in the world.
The film shows the major aspects of university life with particular emphasis on the administrative efforts to maintain the academic excellence, public role, and the economic, racial, and social diversity of the student body of America’s premiere public university in the face of drastic budgetary cuts imposed by the State of California.
Wiseman is a director who has worked predominately in documentary of the majority of his forty year career... he really is a master when it comes to this genre of film.
Once again, he has delivered a film that is another very interesting and quite complex watch.
Berkeley University has always been a forward-thinking school that has offered a great education to the students who enrol there - that reputation and position is under threat.
Wiseman has been given access to staff meetings as they talk about the problems that they are facing and the solutions to help ease their problems.
However, At Berkeley is not just a movie about the problems that are facing this school, as it also looks into the inequality of the U.S. educational system.
Wiseman also takes us into the classroom where we see first-hand the work that the teachers are doing to educate the next generation. We are also given access to some of the thoughts of the students in the classroom.
There is a fascinating debate among the students about the opportunities that are on offer to different areas of society. One student raises a very fine point - is the economic problem in the U.S., now only an issue because it is affecting the white middle class?
She rightly points out that there have always been people in America below the breadline, where some areas of society don't have access to the same opportunities as others.
At a whopping 244 minutes, the documentary is unnecessarily long. Wiseman really could have showed the issues of this university in half the time and without losing any of the intrigue. I do wonder whether this lengthy run time will be a major turn-off for many people, which would be a major shame.
At Berkeley is a movie about social and economic change that is starting to impact on the education of the young, which is an issue that needs to be faced up to and talked about. This really is a very interesting watch.
At Berkeley is out now.