Welfare (18)

Dir Frederick Wiseman/US 1968/75 mins

In his second film, documentarian Frederick Wiseman ventures inside a large city high school – the most everyday of American institutions – where lessons range from debates on existentialism to a simulated space flight.

Assembled with dry humour, High School captures a series of formal and informal encounters between teachers, students, parents and administrators. With Wiseman’s usual knack for presenting a clear-eyed vision of complex realities, the film shows how the function of education is steeped in the passing on of social and moral values.