From Bangkok Post’s website
THAI SILP GOES BACK TO WORK
http://www.bangkokpost.net/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=120114
Reading the news about the Thai Silp factory workers reminds me of many films about the struggle of the working class, including many films I would like to see, but haven't had a chance to see them yet. So I decide to write my wish list for these films.
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The following post is related to my earlier posts on
--COUP POUR COUP (A+) and Christian Ziewer
http://celinejulie.blogspot.com/2007/06/favorite-quote-from-coup-pour-coup.html
--Favorite films about working class
http://celinejulie.blogspot.com/2007/07/films-about-working-class.html
This is my wish list for films about the working class
1.A BIENTOT, J’ESPERE (1968, Chris Marker, France)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063854/
Synopsis from imdb.com written by Guy Berlinger:
“1967, one year before may '68. The strike at the Rhodiaceta textile plant in Besancon sounds like the rehearsal of the rising to come. Indeed for the first time ever, the workers' claims are not only higher wages or better working conditions but also BETTER LIVING CONDITIONS. They first and foremost say no to the lifestyle capitalism wants to impose on them. One more year to go and the whole country of France will imitate the strikers of Besancon.”
2.ADALEN ’31 (1969, Bo Widerberg, Sweden)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065261/
Synopsis from imdb.com written by Fredrik Klasson:
“During a strike strike-breakers are being transported to Sandviken, where they are assaulted by the strikers. The military are sent in. On the 14th May 1931 there is a confrontation between demonstrators and the military who open fire and five people are killed and five injured.”
3.THE WORKING CLASS GOES TO HEAVEN (1971, Elio Petrie, Italy)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066919/
Synopsis from imdb.com
“Lulu is a real hard worker. For this reason he is loved by the masters and hated by his own colleagues. The unions decide agitations against the masters. Lulu doesn't agree till he cuts, by accident, one of his own fingers. Now, after he understood the worker's conditions, he agrees the unions and participates to the strike. He immediately is fired and, not only is abandoned by his lover, but also by the other workers. But the fights of the unions allow him under a new legislation to be hired again. At this point his mind starts giving collapse signs...”
4.OCCASIONAL WORK OF A FEMALE SLAVE (1973, Alexander Kluge, West Germany)
This is what Tony Rayns wrote about this film in TIME OUT FILM GUIDE:
http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/65895/Occasional_Work_of_a_Female_Slave.html
“That rarest of movies: a left wing comedy which doesn't hang itself up in questions of 'realism' but does involve itself very closely with the everyday flux of political and social pressures. Alexandra Kluge (the director's sister) plays a young housewife and mother who works as a part-time abortionist; her cynical complacency gives way to a bright-eyed 'activism' when she's forced out of the job and starts waging a one-woman war against the authorities, the bosses, and the tyranny of the family. Kluge charts her hopeless campaign through documentary (an unblinking look at the fact of abortion) and witty fiction alike, his methods recalling both Brecht and Godard; everything is informed by a kind of wry humour that keeps the plot in perspective without tempering its immediacy. It's hard to think of another film that's as honest, relevant and yet not disillusioned as this.”
5.PAY AND LOVE (1973, Marianne Luedcke + Ingo Kratisch, West Germany)
Apart from being a director, Ingo Kratisch is also a marvelous cinematographer. She is the cinematographer of SOMETHING MORE THAN NIGHT (2003, Daniel Eisenberg, A+). (Daniel Eisenberg is a teacher of Apichatpong Weerasethakul).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356053/
6.TOUCHED IN THE HEAD (1974, Jacques Doillon)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071429/
Synopsis from imdb.com:
“Baker's apprentice Chris is sacked from his job for being late. Unwilling to give up the flat that goes with the job, he and his friends resort to squatting. Liv, a Swedish girl moves in and is soon followed by Leon the car mechanic and Rosette, a girl from the bakery.”
7.THE NIGHTCLEANERS (1975, Marc Karlin + James Scott)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0251293/
Synopsis from imdb.com:
“"Night Cleaners" is set in the context of the campaign (1970-1972) to unionize the women who cleaned office blocks at night and were being victimized and underpaid. Intending at the outset to make a campaign film, the Collective was forced to turn to new forms in order to represent the forces at work between the cleaners, the Cleaner's Action Group and the Unions - and the complex nature of the campaign itself.”
8.WOMEN WORKERS OF HARA FACTORY (1976, John Ungpakorn, Thailand)
You can read more about this documentary from the following link:
http://www.adjameson.com/film/bkkiff04.html
9.SO THAT YOU CAN LIVE (1982, Cinema Action, UK)
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/529374/index.html
10.THE KILLING FLOOR (1985, Bill Duke)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087554/
Synopsis from imdb.com written by Karl Williams:
“During World War I, a poor black Southerner travels north to Chicago to get work in the city's slaughterhouses, where he becomes embroiled in the organized labor movement. He becomes prominent as a leader of fellow African-Americans in the union, though many, including his best friend, view him as a sell-out.”
11.OUR MOTHER IS A HERO (1989, Nikolai Obuhovich, Soviet Union)
Information about this film from the book THE ZERO HOUR: GLASNOST AND SOVIET CINEMA IN TRANSITION by Andrew Horton and Michael Brashinsky:
“Another angle on the same subject, treated earlier in fiction film in Andrzej Wajda’s MAN OF MARBLE, is taken by the Leningrad documentary OUR MOTHER IS A HERO (NASHA MAMA, GEROI, 1989) by Nikolai Obuhovich, which was also banned for several years. In the limelight once again is an ordinary woman who becomes a symbol of an exemplary worker. She starts shopping in special stores and visiting top meetings, but actually stops working. Behind the scene is her family: desolate children, an enervated husband who becomes a housemaid, and a television screen on which, along with falsified Brezhnevian propaganda, we see her, a “hero” of that, not this, reality.”
12.BREAD AND ROSES (2000, Ken Loach)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212826/
13.AN INJURY TO ONE (2002, Travis Wilkerson)
“An experimental documentary exploring the turn-of-century lynching of union organizer Frank Little in Butte, Montana.”
http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0329,halter,45535,20.html
14.WORKINGMAN’S DEATH (2005, Michael Glawogger)
http://www.workingmansdeath.com/
15.MAQUILAPOLIS (2006, Vicky Funari + Sergio de la Torre, Mexico)
Alone Again wrote in Thai about this documentary in the following link:
http://www.bloggang.com/viewdiary.php?id=aloneagain&month=06-2007&date=10&group=11&gblog=1
I haven’t seen MAQUILAPOLIS, but I saw another documentary by Vicky Funari. It’s called LIVE NUDE GIRLS UNITE! (2000, B+), which Funari co-directed with Julia Query. This film is also about female workers, but this time it is about a kind of sexual workers who possess as much dignity as us.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264802/
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Below are photos from WORKINGMAN’S DEATH
1 comment:
This is the synopsis of PAY AND LOVE (Lohn und Liebe) (1973, Marianne Luedcke and Ingo Kratisch) from the book WEST GERMAN CINEMA SINCE 1945: A REFERENCE HANDBOOK by Richard C. Helt and Marie E. Helt :
“A portrait of the conflicts, struggles and solidarity of a group of women workers, as they seek to protect themselves against low wages and mindless jobs.”
The film is 101 minutes long, starring Erika Skrotzke, Evelyn Meyka, and Michael Beermann.
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It seems to me that workers nowadays have to face many problems, including:
1.the competition with China and many countries with cheap labour.
2.the fluctuating of foreign exchange rates. The strong Thai baht is blamed for the nearly shutting down of the Thai Silp factory.
3.the trend of outsourcing
4.capitalists who care only for profits
I myself don’t know how to solve all of these problems. I just know that I’m sad when I see some cleaning ladies who have to provide for their families with such low wages get laid off just because some companies want to increase profits by choosing cheap outsourcing. I think it’s very cruel.
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