“The Time of the Workers: A Fascinating History of the European Working World”

PUBLIC SENATE – FRIDAY, APRIL 14 – 10:00 PM – DOCUMENTARY SERIES

With this history of the European working world spread over three centuries, Stan Neumann, a famous documentary filmmaker of Czech origin, author of films noted both for their rigor and for their careful aesthetics (the architecture of great monuments, a study of The tongue does not liethe diary of the German philologist Victor Klemperer under the III^e Reich), pulled off a veritable tour de force.

Son Worker time is destined to become a classic. Between the historical interest, the strength of the filmed archives, the wealth of testimonies, the integration of animation sequences as instructive as they are amusing, it is a fascinating lesson in political, social and economic history in which the facts ( from working conditions to major struggles between bosses and employees) also leave room for emotion.

The most astonishing thing about this long-term journey, which starts from the first factories of the 1730s, is to see how the issues remain the same through the centuries.

sell your time

With, as first evidence, the dispossession of time. Because being a worker, today as yesterday, means first of all selling your time. “The obviousness with which past and present echo each other surprised me during the editing”emphasizes Stan Neumann.

Thanks to a remarkable editing, the director did not remain a prisoner of the chronological framework. He never ceases to confront historical narration with today’s words. From the worker of the Krupp factories, in the middle of the XIX^e century, which must adapt to the increasingly infernal rhythm of machines and sees its time controlled even when it goes to the toilets, to that of Peugeot, almost half a century ago, which says in voice off: “Line work damages your body, your brain. It’s not rewarding. Apart from the pain, you transmit nothing! »

Employees of today tell, facing the camera, their experience. “We are conditioned by ringtones, noise”says a worker in a car factory. “People no longer define themselves as workers. They define themselves as the position to which they are assigned. There is not even, within the same factory, this idea that we are all in the same boat! »deplores a worker in the food industry.

The animation sequences provide breathing space while dissecting various concepts (from capitalism to Taylorism) in a fun way. Added to this is a soundtrack punctuated by songs that have remained in the collective memory of the proletariat and the warm voice of Bernard Lavilliers in the commentary. From Glasgow (Scotland) to Terni (Italy), from Sochaux (Doubs) to Berlin, from the mines of Silesia, in Poland, to the Italian steelworks, this fresco in “search for lost time” mode is worth the detour.