'Til Madness Do Us Part

Three times the length of Titicut Follies, I can't say it's three times as impactful, though for sure the endless shots of men shuffling along the open corridors between cells and guard rails does sear itself into your senses. And if one person's 'immersive' is another person's 'boring', amidst the quieter observational material Wang Bing has filmed some extraordinary scenes, sometimes painful, sometimes moving. You may find yourself becoming unreasonably anxious about the fate of a bag of tangerines brought in by one spouse: a sign that the film's sheer length has its effect. If documentary exists on a spectrum between observational and explanatory, this is very much at the extreme end of the first type; although final captions answer some of the questions - why are these men here? What would they have to do to get out? - that will have nagged you for three to four hours.