Boxing Gym

After more than 40 years in the business, Frederick Wiseman once again delivers a commentary-free portrait of an institution from the inside out. His 39th film is about Lord's Gym, the tiny boxing school of former professor Richard Lord in Austin, Texas. The preconceived notion of a boxing school as a sanctuary for aggressive hoodlums is struck down in the very first minutes: a boxer is working away at a punching bag while his daughter watches from her stroller. He kneels down next to her, gives her white socks a little tap with his black boxing gloves, and then returns to his training. In the words of another regular, "Anybody who comes in here acting like a tough-ass doesn't last very long." The atmosphere is pleasant and the clientele is diverse: from the Internet billionaire and the soldier to the housewife with her son. In the sparse dialogue that occasionally interrupts the flow of repetitive training and boxing matches, subjects talk about apparently random matters such as Latin American dance or the mass murder at Virginia Tech, which took place during the 2007 film shoot. Slowly but surely, however, two recurring themes from Wiseman's impressive oeuvre rise to the surface: rhythm and violence. The director was IDFA's guest of honor in 2009.