HUmAN RESOURCES

Human Resources was a season of films I programmed at the Genesis Cinema and Close-up Film Centre in December 2021/January 2022. The collection was an exploration of the depiction of work and labour on screen. All screenings were introduced by myself, accompanied by a printed brochure, written essays, and a critics’ panel which I hosted for Blue Collar.

Since the early days of the art form, film has always shown a keen interest in capturing the realities of work and labour on screen. One of the first films ever made, the Lumière Brothers’ Workers Leaving the Factory, immediately illustrated the newfound possibility of capturing the day-to-day activities that make society tick, and audiences have been hooked ever since.

Curated as part of the Film Studies, Programming and Curation MA at the National Film and Television School, Human Resources is a season of films that charts a 60-plus year historical overview of the depiction of work and labour on screen. The shifting landscape of labour throughout the 20th and 21st centuries is shown through the evolution of its cinematic representation, ranging from manual labour’s forced adaptation in the face of industrialization to threats to individual identity in the midst of the gig economy. This season paints an evocative, wide-ranging view of our complicated relationship with the jobs that provide for us and often define us.

Following the progression of visions of work from the 1950s to now, the season comes together to examine cinema’s long-standing role in bringing attention to labour issues perhaps unknown or taken for granted. Pioneering documentarian Margot Benacerraf’s Araya (1959) surveys the hopes, pains, and anxieties of Venezuelan salt quarry miners as the impending mechanization of their difficult but financially necessary work threatens to take away their livelihoods. Paul Schrader’s righteously angry directorial debut Blue Collar (1978) turns the fury over factory and union abuses into a daring heist thriller featuring Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto as three auto workers who plot to rob the union that fails to protect them. An early gem from the Dardennes, La Promesse (1996), brings to light the abuses of undocumented immigrant workers via a moving drama about a young boy conflicted over fulfilling a promise he made to one of his abusive father’s dying employees. Finally, Brandon Cronenberg presents a visceral vision of the future of the gig economy in Possessor (2020), which follows Andrea Riseborough as a body-swapping assassin whose obsession with her career has violent, existential consequences. From labours lost to time to startling visions of the contemporary workforce, this season looks to provide a comprehensive perspective on the role of work in our lives at a time where that role is under international scrutiny.