Anyone else feel this way? I think maybe it would be better as a miniseries with each episode focusing on a different aspect of the school. Hard to rate it as a whole but I found parts very interesting. Hard to reccomend with the 4hr runtime.
shareUnless you saw this in a screening or in a classroom situation, I don't see why you couldn't arrange your own "miniseries" experience with this film. As you sort of point out, it has an episodic structure, showing the institution via relatively brief "scenes." So just watch until you feel like you're trapped, then escape.
It's only an hour longer than "Welfare," which was much more claustrophobic in its focus on a single NYC office building. (Which, of course, helps you empathize with the people in that film.)
Or play a drinking game while watching "At Berkeley." Take a drink every time you see the outside of a building, or a bicycle, or an Apple laptop, or a groundskeeper, or you hear a Canadian accent. Take hacky-sack breaks in between scenes, or play frisbee with your dog, as students do between classes.
Some people might want to pretend (or complain as if) they are chained to their screen for the entire runtime. I gave myself an intermission about halfway through and I didn't feel it affected my feeling for the "flow" or the totality of the picture being presented.
last 2 dvds: Tempo di viaggio (1983) & Padre padrone (1977)
Take a drink every time you see the outside of a building, or a bicycle, or an Apple laptop, or a groundskeeper, or you hear a Canadian accent.