‘The History of Concrete’ Review: John Wilson’s World of Oddities and Unexpected Epiphanies

Across the three seasons of his extraordinary HBO series How To with John Wilson, the filmmaker, narrator and, in more ways than one, main character of his own episodes made a habit of wandering around the world, following whatever people, places or subjects happened to catch his attention. What often began as an ironic, slightly mischievous look at some eccentric corner of everyday life would gradually turn into something else: an unexpectedly perceptive, sometimes moving revelation about the world we inhabit. It was a tricky balancing act. Wilson’s approach often came dangerously close to making fun of the people he encountered, or adopting the sort of knowing, superior attitude that can easily turn observational humor into condescension. But he usually managed to avoid that trap, not least by exposing his own awkwardness and pathetic side, and by finding a way to transform seemingly ironic vignettes into surprisingly humane epiphanies.

Each 25-minute episode followed that journey from beginning to end. Wilson would start with an oddball subject, then gradually bend, stretch and reshape it until he arrived somewhere entirely unexpected, in a peculiar mental space where seemingly unrelated observations suddenly came together to reveal something about people and the world around them. The challenge of making the transition to a feature film was obvious: could he stretch that familiar journey into 90 or 100 minutes without losing its peculiar rhythm? Could he take the same narrative detours and arrive at something meaningful over a much longer stretch of time? That’s the gamble The History of Concrete doesn’t entirely win. It’s still a remarkable journey through urban life, filled with colorful characters, bizarre encounters and an almost inexhaustible supply of fascinating details. But the feature-length format also gives Wilson more room than he needs to indulge in the eccentricities of his subjects, sometimes drifting into territory that feels uncomfortably close to mockery. The expected shift in perspective eventually comes, but a bit later than it should.

The History of Concrete begins with one of the familiar devices Wilson used to structure his HBO series: picking a subject that is really just a starting point, an excuse to set his investigative machinery in motion. The topic itself is almost beside the point. What matters is where it takes him, what he discovers along the way, and the connections he eventually draws between the things he sees. The filmmaker retains pretty much everything that made the series distinctive: his inquisitive voice-over, his peculiar habit of addressing the audience in the second person, and his constant willingness to expose the filmmaking process itself. We learn, for instance, that after the HBO show ended, Wilson found himself without a project and with very little money left from his previous job (including some absurdly small residual checks worth less than a dollar). He talks about his financial troubles, his housing situation and his various attempts to come up with a viable idea for a new film. At one point, he even enrolls in a course on how to make Hallmark movies. Eventually, he settles on concrete. Which, as he is quick to point out, is not the same thing as cement, despite what most people seem to think.

That decision sends him down a rabbit hole involving a subject he openly acknowledges is of interest to practically nobody. And yet concrete is everywhere, an essential part of our everyday existence that we rarely stop to think about. Once he starts digging into this strange little world, Wilson encounters an assortment of people who work with the material, attends conventions and exhibitions, and begins collecting bits of information that send him off in increasingly unpredictable directions. There’s a man who specializes in removing chewing gum from sidewalks, a trip to Italy to visit the Pantheon, an investigation into the deteriorating concrete slabs at Hollywood’s Chinese Theatre, where generations of celebrities have left their handprints, and a visit to a badly maintained public swimming pool in the Bronx. From there, the film somehow finds its way to a rather unusual Buddhist-inspired race in Brooklyn. All of this unfolds through the kind of free-associative editing and narration that has always been Wilson’s trademark, connecting images and ideas in ways that are rarely predictable.

Following these various leads eventually takes him into broader reflections on the state of our cities, their gradual decay and, more generally, the world we move through without paying much attention to the things that surround us. But the journey also exposes one of the familiar pitfalls of this kind of documentary filmmaking: the temptation to seek out the weirdest people and most outlandish situations imaginable, treating them as inherently entertaining specimens. With a feature-length running time at his disposal, Wilson occasionally gives in to that temptation a little too enthusiastically. He lingers over the strangest character, the most bizarre event or the most eccentric corner of the concrete universe, as if the mere presence of these oddities were enough to justify their inclusion. In the series, that tendency was usually kept in check by the format. A particularly peculiar encounter might occupy a few minutes before the narrative took another unexpected turn, often toward something much more interesting. Here, getting to that point takes considerably longer, and Wilson spends too much time reveling in the more absurd fringes of the concrete world and its assorted subcultures.

The film eventually finds its way out of that dead end when Wilson meets Jack Macco, a man whose job is to offer customers samples of a particular brand of mezcal at a liquor store. At first, Macco seems like just another amusingly peculiar character: a friendly, slightly odd fellow who also plays in a rock band called Nebulus, performing covers and original songs for what amounts to a handful of people. But as Wilson spends more time with him, the portrait gradually deepens, becoming a much more affecting exploration of a man, his particular circumstances and the feelings his story awakens in the filmmaker. In a way, Macco rescues The History of Concrete from its more sardonic impulses and from a tendency that has become all too common in documentary filmmaking: using the camera as a tool of power, a way of establishing a distinction between those who understand the world and those who supposedly don’t.

Empathy has always been Wilson’s greatest asset, and thankfully it returns here to pull the film back from the edge. When a camera meets its subjects at eye level, when a documentary allows room for impulses and perspectives that don’t necessarily originate with the filmmaker, the result tends to be more democratic, generous and, ultimately, more human. That’s the territory in which Wilson’s filmmaking works best. Instead of hovering above the world, observing it from an ironic distance, he allows himself to become part of it. He lets the truths of the people he encounters take precedence over whatever conclusions he might have had in mind, opening the door to more complex, profound and emotionally resonant reflections on the world we live in, and on how difficult it can sometimes be simply to exist in it.