Master filmmaker Frederick Wiseman takes you deep, deeper and deeper still, into the beating heart of New York’s Metropolitan Hospital. Filming in its emergency ward, outpatient clinic and operating rooms, Wiseman weaves a rich human tapestry of embattled professionalism and human strength, frailty, suffering and redemption, all playing out amid the intricacies of a modern bureaucracy. Wiseman’s patience during filming and thoughtful editing bring out the complexities of staff-patient communication with a searching intelligence, flashes of humour and profound compassion. It’s a landmark of world documentary that’s far from worthy textbook stuff: this is great cinema, period.