Workingman's Death
Apr 25, 2012
(Michael Glawogger, Austria, 2005, 35mm, 122 min)
Director in attendance!
In his tradition of making documentaries that enthrall the senses while they wrestle the mind, Michael Glawogger turns the spotlight on hard labor across the globe today—occupations so grueling that even remembering their existence comes as a shock—stitching them together with Wolfgang Thaler’s unforgettable cinematography. From the tearing apart of oil tankers in Pakistan to the illegal mining of coal in Ukraine, Glawogger frames each staggering scene like a photograph: this is a documentary, not a horror film, and captures the best along with the worst of “real life.” In 2005, this collage of terrors and triumphs stunned audiences around the world, and was named Best Documentary at the German Film Awards, the Yerevan Festival, and the BFI London Film Festival.
"It's a triumph of the human spirit that so many people in deadly jobs are able, nevertheless, to marry and have a few happy moments despite lives of hellish labor. Glawogger's intrepid camera finds both the shame and the grace in it." - New York Daily News
