Communal Luxury: Post-capitalism and the End of Labour

Nine men gather for a workshop on a rooftop. There they perform confrontations of everyday life, with the police and at the workplace. In the process, the actors engage a space between the theatrical and the real. This is not a film about workers. The factory is a microcosm, a miniature Egypt.

When the Greek factory of Vio.me. closes down, a group of workers decides to take radical action. They occupy the factory and attempt to operate it themselves, based on the principles of direct democracy. Their venture inspires activists all around the world, while the ex-owner is astonished to see the family business turn into a symbol for the up-and-coming radical left. For the workers, striving to make ends meet, self-management turns out to be an unprecedented adventure, full of conflicts. They soon realise that in order to succeed, the first thing they have to change is themselves.

A poetic protest against the destructive social and environmental effects of industrialisation in China. Zhao Liang’s visually arresting and meditative film takes us to the heart of the Chinese mining industry, highlighting its toxic impact. Sheep farmers are driven from their pastures to make way for mines; sick miners with ruined lungs lie dying in local hospitals. A mountain paradise becomes an industrial wasteland surrounded by ghost towns of brand-new, deserted apartment blocks. In the Old Testament, the mountains are the domain of a monster named Behemoth; in modern times the vast mining industry has taken this monster’s place. Drawing on Dante’s Inferno, this lyrical yet politically-charged film offers a moving portrait of a modern-day hell.

Document, in association with Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow, presents an extremely rare opportunity to watch this extraordinary six-hour long film about the Paris Commune on the big screen. Director Peter Watkins’ previous work includes War Games, a documentary about the fallout of a nuclear attack, which was banned by the BBC for thirty years. In La Commune (Paris, 1871), Watkins turns his attention to the heroic attempts of Parisian workers to build a revolutionary socialist republic. But this is no mainstream historical drama. Rather, Watkins employs experimental cinematic techniques to link the Communards’ struggles to present-day concerns, and to critique the ideological role played by the film and television industry.

Introduced by David Archibald (University of Glasgow).

There will be a 15-minute interval half-way through the film.

This screening is presented in association with Alliance Française.