38. The Nothing Factory (A Fábrica de Nada); movie review
Cert TBA
177 mins
BBFC advice: TBA
For a good 90 minutes, The Nothing Factory is a very realistic reflection of what it must be like when workers are told they are being made redundant.
Then it dives into deep and meaningful debate about capitalism and communism...
And finally it becomes a musical!
I had the clear impression that director Pedro Pinho couldn't decide what he wanted from his movie so elected to throw in all of his ideas.
The problem is that his lack of incision results in a picture which is, unnecessarily, three hours long.
Pinho's film is set in a comparatively small and old-fashioned Portuguese company which makes lifts but is losing its place in the market.
Therefore, during one night a team arrives to take away some of the workers' vital machinery.
They get wind of the removal operation and at that moment begin a dissent against the owners' plans to wind it down.
Obviously, this sort of scenario has been commonplace in Europe over the past three decades with factory life becoming a rarity rather than normality.
Where Pinho's film is successful is when it hones in on the splits among the workers over whether they should accept the redundancy terms or take industrial action.
The key individual decisions threaten to slice through friendships and also have an impact at home.
There is real clarity in this section of the movie but it becomes much more ill-defined when the staff alight upon the notion of running the factory themselves.
Perhaps it is because I spent much of my career in management that I find some of the workers' arguments naive in the extreme.
None of them are in involved in sales, understand the world economy or even the pressures on their own industry and yet they just seem to think they can take over the factory and run it successfully.
It is true that in some instances this has actually happened but I am left to presume that, in those cases, the knowledge base was greater.
Anyway, I am afraid a movie has to be very very good to keep my attention for three hours and The Nothing Factory was only good so I was wilting by its finale.
Reasons to watch: a very realistic portrayal of job loss
Reasons to avoid: drags on far too long
Laughs: none
Jumps: none
Vomit: none
Nudity: yes
Overall rating: 6/10
Director's statement - Pedro Pinho: "In Portugal, and in Europe, the last few years have caused a brutal re-definition of the way in which we look at the world. A lack of prospects and valid discourses about the present has often made us feel ineffectual."
The big question - Why are workers always deemed to be right and management made out to be monsters?
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