Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

The Worst Film Ever

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

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.

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.

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.

Belfast, Maine is an extraordinarily well made documentary. You are riveted to the screen, drawn into the lives of individuals trying to get by working in factories, dry cleaners, bakeries. I sat watching, never leaving for the full four hours.Now for the bad news. As a resident of Belfast, I couldn't help but see that a huge segment of the population was being ignored. Where were the professionals? I remember one doctor portrayed, on call in the emergency room. Lawyers? Real estate agents? Where was my favorite latte shop? Where were the hundreds of magnificent homes in our historic district? No. The director shut us out. He wanted to show what my boss refers to as "Hidden Belfast," not the one most of us see every day. I wish he had told me up front. The film ignores what Belfast has become over the past decade, a renaissance town, a tourist destination, with a beautiful waterfront, comfortable bed and breakfasts, and wonderful downtown. A place that two years ago the Cohn Brothers and their families (of Fargo fame) chose as a vacation destination.Belfast, Maine (the documentary) all too clearly reminded me what a good director could do...by not showing certain footage (and other careful editing,) totally distort the truth.