A beautiful and meaningful urban documentary, Stations of the Elevated

Manfred Kirchheimer's 1981 documentary, Stations of the Elevated, weighs in at only 45 minutes, which turns out to be the perfect length of time for this extended look at the NY subway system (specifically, the elevated cars and tracks of the Dyre Street line), which become a metaphor and viewpoint for a look at an entire society. Right from its witty and allusive title, with its religious connotations, the film promises to be much more than an art project - it's as meaningful and deep as any movie about contemporary urban life, even though it has no plot and no scripted dialog. The film begins with a long study of the elevated cars in their yard at the start of a day, as they slowly begin moving, like prehistoric giant beasts - with the only soundtrack the squeals of the cars emerging from the barn - strange and beautiful shots (who hasn't wondered where these cars go at night, btw?), but also hideous shots: Every car is nearly completely covered by tags from the thousands of urban graffiti artists. Are these tags art or are they desecrations of public space? Our thoughts on this go back and forth: There is a strange beauty and a lot of skill (MK makes no attempt to show the artists in action; for that go see Exit Through the Gift Shop), but you also look at these and think we're seeing a city and a civilization in ruin, where public given up all hope of maintaining clean public transportation. Over the course of the film we see scenes from some of the neighborhoods the cars pass on their route, with a particularly striking sequence in what is probably a project in the South Bronx, one which looks like a war-ravaged city, which in a sense it is. Kids play some dangerous games jumping out of a window onto an old mattress, and at one point they pause to admire the artwork on a passing car: This to them (and in a way to us) is a thing of beauty, possibly the onlyl beauty and color in their frightening lives. What chance do these kids have, we wonder? What kind of society would let families live in projects such as these? Oddly, the end of the line (South Ferry, I looked it up - the film gives us no direct markers) includes a view of the State of Liberty - MK doesn't dwell on this oddity, but just gives us a flash of an image, enough to make us wonder about art and culture and public space. Most of the sound is ambient, but there are some fine moments that include a jazz score by Mingus and, at the end of the day when the cars return to their "yard," Aretha Franklin singing a gospel song (was it Amazing Grace?) - and we sense that there is something holy and otherworldly about these passing trains, uniting a city, floating along above ground, screaming and grunting like a dying animal, an artist's composition in motion and evolving from night to night and even as we watch.