City So Real (Ep. 1-4)
There's a weird dynamic where if you are making a really dynamically crafted argument documentary, it is generally best to keep it on the shorter side and incredibly tight, but once you opt for more of a cinema verite style of documentary, it's a better bet to be extremely expansive. City So Real, a docu-series airing on NatGeo starting next Thursday (and appearing on Hulu the following day) from Steve James of Hoop Dreams fame, fills four hour-long episodes (in festival format, a fifth episode will run on TV) in a manner that is Frederick Wiseman doing Street Fight. It focuses on the 2019 Chicago Mayoral election, but also Chicago a bit more broadly, to provide a feel for a city facing some real challenges. The main aspect that signals this is a constructed work are graphics of the different Chicago neighborhoods, letting you know where in the city each scene is taking place.
The political context here is Rahm Emmanuel did not run for reelection, being deeply unpopular in part because of what was seen as an inadequate response to the murder of multiple Black men by the police. Into that void rush about a dozen people of a variety of backgrounds, ideologies and political styles. In the grand style of Wisemanian excess, you just settle in and get comfortable, and just get struck by various moments based on your own personal sentiments. There's the footage of officer Jason Van Dyke's trial, where he takes the stand, leading me to have doubts as generally speaking the defendant taking the stand in a criminal trial is always a terrible idea. (It was!). There is the millennial candidate whose strategy, as depicted in the documentary, seems to mostly rest on endorsements from Chance The Rapper and Kanye, which was pretty cringe to me. There was the scene from a planning commission hearing where a NIMBY dude complains about the proposed 60-story building across from his 2-story bar that feels cursed, considering this is amid discussions of gentrification and rising prices driving out existing populations. But opposition to development responsive to demand, not gentrification, is usually the cause of the price increases and displacement. There is a scene at a high school where the audience holds up color-coded cards to signal how strong they think the answer is and the candidates themselves have emoji placards to signal things. One of the candidates holds up a poop emoji to signal his displeasure with one of the other candidate's point. Extremely cringe. But putting it all together makes for a based show. I will definitely be tuning in once the fifth episode hits Hulu.