If Manfred Kirchheimer’s latest documentary “Free Time” could summarize itself into a single statement, it would be that there is power in silence. Not a single word of dialogue is spoken in “Free Time,” and yet, this 60-minute exploration of New York City speaks louder than most films, documentary or otherwise, released in 2019 so far.
For those unfamiliar with the director and his work, Kirchheimer’s 60-year career fundamentally consists of nonfictional, documentarian love letters to the sprawling urban landscape of New York City; his prior works include “We Were So Beloved,” which captures the experiences of European immigrants who crossed the Atlantic in response to Nazi occupation, and the political-art-inspired “Art Is…The Permanent Revolution.”
Created from collections of black-and-white 16mm footage shot my Kirchheimer and Walter Hess from 1958 to 1960, “Free Time” is a plotless examination of urbanites living day-to-day in a bygone era of New York City. Aligning itself with the majority of the director’s prior output, NYC itself steals the spotlight before any subject matter or character, although Kirchheimer’s editing transforms New York City into a living creature of sorts. The atmosphere of the piece morphs from tranquil to crushing with a simple dissolve, a creative decision that allows “Free Time” to remain dynamic.
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Due to the absence of narration and interview subjects, fans of film analysis will devour the amount of interpretation that one can extract from what Kirchheimer attempts to communicate with “Free Time.” The principal theme of the documentary appears to be time itself—no pun intended—an idea enhanced via the retrospective format of 16mm and constant visual references to age and its effect on the human body as well as the city itself. Although Kirchheimer conveys this notion through multiple avenues, the imagery of children playing stickball in the streets while their elderly neighbors look down from their apartment windows is repeated multiple times throughout the documentary.
Furthermore, the destruction of decrepit buildings by modern machinery contributes to the impending sense of transformation gradually overtaking New York City. The industrial beauty of a junkyard and glimpses of storefront windows marked for demolition compound the notion of how time ultimately eats away at everything it touches. Time cannot be stopped, only endured; this concept is further represented through a sequence of an exhausted man pushing a cart filled with garbage through the streets, arguably one of the more memorable, albeit downtrodden moments in the film.
Similar to William Basinski’s “The Disintegration Loops,” a collection of ambient albums whose release coincided with the 9/11 attacks, “Free Time” feels innately anchored to the city that it documents, and not unlike Basinski’s analog tape loops, Kirchheimer’s film is structured like someone’s foggy memories of an old town, repeating images and sounds until both fade away like a daydream. The desolate realization that many of the people captured on screen are either close to death or already passed away is an unavoidable reality that taints every frame with a bittersweet ambiance.
If “Free Time” harbors any flaws at all, its inadequacies exist solely due to its format as a wordless, hour-long documentary about everyday people. Therefore, as a project that is utterly reliant on viewer interpretation, the documentary will either speak to you or leave you bored; the margin to fall somewhere in-between either party is microscopically small.
Nevertheless, reading between the lines is rarely this rewarding. Despite its abstract nature, “Free Time” functions as a pensive meditation on the repetitive mundanity of the metropolitan landscape that revels in the inevitability of time and death, but also argues that perhaps the most important moments in life exist in the unremarkable minutes between the extraordinary events—in the free time. [B+]