Belfast, Maine

This is not a film for anyone under 35. Wiseman manages to portray Belfast as some sort of hellish retirement community. The entire film is done without a hint of humor, and Wiseman seems to be taking these people's gray little lives as over-seriously as they do. Rarely do any of the people of Belfast crack a smile - it's as if living in Belfast has literally sucked all of the joy out of their lives.

This film fails on every level. As entertainment, it fails miserably. As serious documentary, it fails because it grossly distorts your image of Belfast - the youth of the town are completely ignored, and the elderly, the infirm and the retarded are represented again and again. As character study it fails because of episodic nature of the film - we never stay with any person long enough to really learn anything about them.

"Belfast, Maine" is one of the worst mistakes in the history of the documentary. A poor, poor film.

Wish I could have voted 7.5. Wanted to check the demographics on Belfast after watching this film. Have to agree with so many others the focus was predominantly down-scale. Would like to have seen the 'other half', so to speak. From this film, it would seem the town is down-trodden, mostly illiterate & suffering from 2-digit IQs. Compassion & intelligence were shown, but not frequently. I'm sure Belfast is much like any other town, with a fair mixture of all levels.

I like to 'observe' people & gather much from interactions, what is said between or among them.

It's a decent movie but left me wanting...to know more, to get a more even feel.

This response is a reply to "Boredom Incarnate", a few lines down.

First of all, the documentary you're referring to - the one that would capture the truth about Belfast Maine - doesn't exist for a reason. That's because Wiseman would probably find that film mediocre at best. At least here he can explore (or more simply, observe) a range of human experience, most of which couldn't be captured with a more privileged, middle class demographic or subject. And make no mistake, his are WORKING class subjects.

The film is largely about processes, big or small, be they industrial relations (with the many factory sequences) or simple human relations. It is hugely perceptive, and extremely captivating, but the problem is that it leaves too much up to the viewer in terms of interpretation. This leads people to review the film with expressions like "boredom incarnate" when they should be saying things like "as close to the truth about 'some' forms of human behavior as you're likely to get with a camera in the room."

See it.

I live in Belfast. Belfast is a miserable, lifeless hole. Evidently, we have a "thriving" art community...where? This film has done an excellent job of encapsulating the misery and miasma.

At first, when the movie came on, I thought it was a fairly good representation of the lobster fishermen that make their living fishing on the Belfast coast. But as I got deeper in to the "documentary" itself, my heart started sinking lower into my stomach. Watching one woman pick lice from another woman's head, is not an impression I want people to have about the town that I grew up in.

There are some good spots in the movie, the lecture on the Civil War, the plant sculpturing class, etc. But other scenes in the documentary made Belfast look, in my father's words, "Appalachian." In my opinion, Frederick Wiseman did not represent the full aspect of the city, he documented the aspects that he wanted to document, and as a result his documentation is a faulty one.

If you want to see Maine life accurately portrayed, this movie definitely isn't the movie to see.