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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 41 No. 14. June 12 1978

Canal Zone

Canal Zone

Every festival has a Frederick Wiseman film and this one is no exception. Primates, Juvenile Court, Meat, Wiseman's work is not always easy to sit through, tending to length and starkness in its relentlessly realistic vision of society.

For those prepared to do more than sit back and let it wash over, however, these films have proved themselves amongst the best in the world of their type. Wiseman has perfected, as few other documentarists have been able, the ability to make films without commentary which tell a clear story and make an incisive statement about the wrong in a given situation, yet have the full compliance of the subjects.

Canal Zone, his 10th feature, appears to forego the usual examination of an institution, which may mark a change from the earlier work. It has been called "an entertaining and subtle close up look at one of the world's most subtle and controlled environments."

Simon Wilson