Monrovia, Indiana (Frederick Wiseman, 2018)

 

Donald Trump is never mentioned in Frederick Wiseman’s Monrovia, Indiana – there’s barely any sign of politics at all – but one's sense of the film surely shifts with the knowledge that it’s located in a county where Trump won some 76% of the vote in both 2016 and 2024. The town appears to be no duller or uglier than the vast majority of small towns, and hence an embodiment of a certain kind of good place to live: the town council diligently works to balance growth and sustainability, spending extensive time on such matters as the placement of a new bench or the availability of fire hydrants; the grocery and liquor stores are well-stocked in the modern consumerist manner. And yet there are ample signs of an insularity that could easily become malleable. The community is startlingly homogenous (at least by modern urban standards), with only the slightest sprinkling of non-white faces; the town’s gun store may have a wider range of inventory than its restaurants have menu choices. The film observes a Masonic event at which a member receives a fifty-year pin, rendered inadvertently funny since no one seems capable of getting through the ornately prescribed wording and ceremony without stumbling; later, a preacher prompts a funeral gathering to sing Amazing Grace, which falls flat as he’s seemingly the only one who knows the words, at least to the second verse. These hollowly executed rituals don’t suggest much active questioning of parameters (in addition to the many who seem to have lived in or around the town forever, there are references to others who moved away and are now returning): the highest cultural activity on display is a school band rendition of the theme from The Simpsons - and yet those council meetings are intelligent and well-informed; the preacher’s sermon is articulate and even moving; whatever we might think of all that Trump support, the film doesn't suggest it would be based entirely in callousness or ignorance. As always, while Wiseman doesn't aspire to tell an entire story, the one he tells is satisfyingly complex and implication-heavy.