Frederick Wiseman takes a hard look at the social and political climate around the Panama Canal Zone in CANAL ZONE, a 1977 documentary.
Wiseman captures a series of scenes during the 1976 Bicentennial, in which American "Zonians" dominate the Panamanian land area established in a 1903 treaty to allow safe ship passage. The film begins with a tour guide explaining to a rapt audience the detailed operational processes of moving a
ship through the canal locks. Meanwhile, native Panamanians cart food and animals on the docks. Inland, Governor Harold Parfitt tells an audience how he intends to make more money for the Zone by reducing the workforce, raising taxes and tolls, and securing more government appropriations. A judge
in a courtroom celebrates "law day" and interrupts proceedings for a minister's prayer. Meanwhile, native Panamanians serve the White Zonians.
The more affluent Zonians enjoy many luxuries, including beach tanning, fishing, and tennis, although they stop their activities for a patriotic military gun-salute. A psychologist works with a woman interpreting a painting, while a nearby mental health facility does little for the native
Panamanians. A Zonian woman complains the military treats her and others like second-class citizens, while a Ladies Auxiliary demonstrates a flag-disposal ritual. Several young married Zonians take a marriage enrichment course, while an African-American dog trainer talks about training school for
dogs.
On a Sunday before Memorial Day, a preacher attacks Women's Lib during a church service. The native Panamanians have a picnic. The Zonians play a softball game, while Black workers clean up. During a valedictory speech, a student honors both God and Country. After the speech, airplanes drop
paratroopers in a military practice. Memorial Day sees a prayer ceremony on a ship, flags placed on veterans' graves, and the owner of a Canal Zone company honoring war dead. Meanwhile, the African-Americans and native Panamanians worship and tend to the graves after the White Americans and
marching bands move on.
Throughout this strong, searing film, Wiseman contrasts the Zonians with the African-Americans and native Panamanians, and the Canal becomes a metaphor for the gulf between the races and classes. Strictly through montage and editing, the differences in behavior and attitude become loud and clear,
despite the fact barely a word is spoken between or among the different cultures. In one typically pungent moment, a chubby White Zonian boy on motor scooter whizzes by a Black woman who just misses a city bus. Time after time, Wiseman glimpses the minorities relegated as servants, which heightens
the arrogantly imperialist appearance of the White Zonian community.
Not that the imperialism needs much emphasizing. Many of the set pieces linger in the mind: the bizarre "law day" ritual in the courtroom; a funereal fashion show for the less-than-haute couture Zonians; the cryptic flag-disposal ritual; the laughable marriage enrichment course ("He lets me do
what I want to do," one young bride tells the instructor, revealing the culture's insidious paternalism); the church ceremony where the preacher says God made females to sew men's socks; the valedictory speech in which the student's tassels get caught in his eye-glasses; and the devastating finale
in which the company owner, Sidney Kaufman, quotes John Donne (pronouncing his last name as "Don") as an example of patriotic spirit. These unintentionally funny and chilling moments fully capture the hollow desperation of this dying culture better than any story film on the subject. Wiseman,
thus, creates a slashing critique of social inequities by letting his participants damn themselves.
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