Metacritic-Rezensionen

Indeed, you leave the film feeling like Wiseman has given you a glimpse of one of those ephemeral ports in a storm to which all of us retreat at times.

He is the least intrusive of great directors, and Boxing Gym, which is about a gym in Austin, Texas, is so offhandedly observant that, for a while, you may wonder if much of anything is really going on.

Boxing Gym is a companion piece of sorts to "La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet," Wiseman's previous doc that played Film Forum last fall. It's not simply that boxing and ballet are understood as kindred activities. Boxing Gym is itself a dance movie-which is to say, a highly formalized exercise in choreographed activity.

Pugilists and philosophers of all kinds converge in Frederick Wiseman's mesmerizing documentary Boxing Gym.

This one is both demanding and extremely rewarding, because it's really a meditation on violence.

Wiseman has made several films about both disability and dance, but this new one might be his most hypnotic, rhythmically assembled observation of corporeal expression.

Viewers' interest in Boxing Gym will likely wax and wane, depending on their interest in martial arts.

Wiseman's approach will surprise none of his veteran viewers: no voiceover, no real narrative, just a pure evocation of a place that acts both as a specific site and a microcosm of a larger sphere.

Wiseman films it all without comment, letting the rhythm of the place tell the story.

The film captures the energy, the stresses and the tension of people striking punching bags and each other but without narration, it all feels a bit random and uninteresting.