As the prequel to the program “Perspektif” that questions the concept of working, this year’s “Retrospektif” tried to highlight Harun Farocki’s works in portraying labor through cinema. If today’s present tried to review conventional labors, Farocki that lived when industrialization became the world’s development basis, depicted it as a beautiful symphony. He wasn’t loud in critiquing industry and humans like a moth within, but he presented the workers’ reality in a repetition of moving pictures and—in some movies—an assembly of words until it evokes an odd intensity effect.
Through Workers Leaving the Factory (1995), Farocki combined footages of the working class in factories. This movie doesn’t just remind us of Lumiere brothers’ first movie in the 100 years celebration of cinema, but it also become a reflection. Until more than 100 years after industrial revolution, humans are in fact still working under the same rhythm. Farocki also conveyed what he called contemporary opinion of industry through his cinematic essay As You See (1986). Moreover, he didn’t forget to capture “new” jobs through observational sequence as the reality of contemporary society in Still Life (1997).
Farocki wasn’t just a productive filmmaker that had directed 120 movies and installation works. He was also a movie critique, editor, theorist, and academician; a complete package which would never be enough to be discussed through his selected three movies. Industry, capital, and humans are subjects that aroused him.
Via Farocki, we could see what’s behind: how industry was created and how humans were like moths in the work vortex. Too little time to explore his way of thinking. But at least, it’s enough to be the beginning to see what had happened back in the days where mechanization and mass industry were considered exceptional—before we’re drowning in the joy of what they called industry 4.0.
Harun Farocki’s movies will be screened at Festival Film Dokumenter 2018 on 5 to 9 December 2018. Specific agenda of “Retrospektif” could be seen on schedule.
