The Nothing Factory 2017 ‘A Fábrica de Nada’ Directed by Pedro Pinho
One night, a group of workers realises that the administration is stealing machines and raw materials from their own factory. As they organize to survey the equipment and block the relocation of production, they are forced to stand at their posts with no work to do, as a form of retaliation, while negotiations over general lay-offs take place. The pressure leads to a breakdown of the workers along with the world around them.
La Fábrica de Nada, L'usine de rien, 破敗工廠, Fabryka niczego
Love it. Pedro Pinho is a great new voice.
Some may find it too long. It runs just under 3 hours. I didn't mind the length but I must admit, I had to watch in two sittings because of schedule.
Does anyone know the tech specs on this? It must be Super 16.
Watched it on Mubi. There was one screening in LA presented Acropolis Cinema... but unfortunately missed that.
[7]
They taught me how to work, but they can't teach me how to shirk correctly... (XTC, "Leisure")
A fascinating curio that could be thought of, in a way, as a very protracted version of one of Miguel Gomes' individual tales from Arabian Nights, Pedro Pinho's debut fiction feature seems a bit over-extended at times, intent of examining its basic problems from every conceivable angle. However once you're one its wavelength, and willing to concede that the labor process is only as cinematic as the time we give it to develop, The Nothing Factory drifts casually by like your favorite college seminar.
True, such a description will turn some people off immediately, but there's no denying that documentary filmmaker Pinho…
Added to: 2017 Ranked
It’s been a long, long time since Chaplin gleefully poked fun at the industrial revolution and all of its ill effects on society and the many, different individuals in it. Almost 90 years later in the midst of the growing cinema of Portugal, this small mammoth of a film comes to light: The Nothing Factory, an almost too obvious, darkly comedic view on the modern effects of industrialization. Where Chaplin could still portray the streams of people going to the factory as massive flocks of sheep, director Pedro Pinho has to achieve the same kind of relevance with the handful of people that are left in such places.
The Nothing Factory follows a small group of…
A central contradiction of the left becomes a point of self-criticism in The Nothing Factory when a factory worker tells an intellectual/filmmaker that no matter how much it disgusts him, he has to accept that the workers are capitalism, that no one wants to create the historical moment and transform the system, that they just want food and comfort for their children, and -last but not least- they are not puppets in his “neorealist musical" to show his "cinema buddies in France.”
It's always said that leftists don't agree on anything, and the film fully recognizes that throughout: among the workers who want to run a factory by themselves, among the intellectuals who discuss theory (at what we might call…
Europen crisis: the show. A superior version of what Miguel Gomes attempted in Arabian Mights because more focused and less centered in the superstar auteur. It tries many different registers to represent the workers' plight with mixed results, but the highs are high even when ideas outstrip Pinho's filmmaking.
If there’s one surefire way to alleviate the sense of drudgery that comes from working in a factory, it’s to kick up a song and dance. It’s tempting to describe Pedro Pinho’s quietly outraged UFO as a three-hour proletarian musical, but that doesn’t quite skim the surface of reality.
I remember sleeping in the theatre and waking up to a group of people discussing capitalism then sleeping again and waking up to some people performing a musical in a factory.
Most of this movie is a solid drama about what happens to a group of workers when their livelihood is taken away from them. This is piced up with a surprise music number and some personal behind-the-scenes lives and philosophical discussions, but the movie is also long and has scenes that could have been removed even when they give the film a very documentaric feel. Cool different movie though about people who's only life is their job (and family).
Крайне затянутая история, в которой подолгу ничего не происходит и очень, очень много диалогов, часть которых можно было бы безболезненно из повествования убрать, при этом ничего бы не изменилось. Окей, вот такая она — обратная сторона капитализма, которую показывает нам режиссёр. Только что с ней делать, совершенно не ясно. Критикуешь? Предлагай.
I am sorry Mr. Pinho, but no, I'm not just going to be bought with that amazing dance-musical sequence!
Fábrica de Nada functions best in the last quarter of it's runtime and whenever absurd or unexpected elements are brought into it. It's main problems come in, when it becomes less cinematic and more of a very longwinded story about the titular factory and it's mildly uninteresting workers. With plot points that go nowhere, not even the rather refreshing theme of hardships and paradoxes that come with a counter-capitalist world view can make up for the three hour run time.
A film that is as important as it is overladen. It takes its time (about three hours), but it constantly has a surprise up its sleeve that hits every quarter an hour or so and keeps you awake. Just as you categorized the film as a Loach-Style social drama it introduces a"french" theoretical meta-narrative. When you settled into this crossover mode, the film suddenly introduces absurdist humor and later punk rock and musical. The best thing about it is, that it gets all of these elements right, tonally speaking. Yet, it is best at the moments where it veers away from realism and approaches some more daring, experimental, yet accessible form that isnt quite there yet. So its a processual film, evolving while you watch, which is quite fitting for its subject matter.
Excelente como señalador de síntomas capitalistas. Si se quiere una crítica básica pero certera para conocer el sistema en que vivimos. Pedagógica.
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updated: 2019-05-21
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