Hmm; not the most catchy of titles, but once seen, you can see why documentary director Paul Meyer took the title from poet (Nobel prize awarded) Salvatore Quasimodo (whose whole poem is given before it begins), and already giving a hint as to why this documentary attained a smidgeon of notoriety after being rejected, and eventually, not actually suppressed, but left to be forgotten, by the Belgian Ministry of Education that had originally commissoned it to supposedly be an upbeat, come on to entice over then much needed foreign labour to emigrate to Belgium in the fifties, in a what can now be seen as a sort of biting the hand that feeds you subversive presentation.
For instead, the Ministry got a surrpetitious (or intended?) dig (pun intended) at the state of what such working class people could be expected to exist in.*
That all bubbles underneath the early shots shown - in loyalty (to funders, the Ministry) - of both pristine, newly constructed homes and school, but soon along the way, laying bare the abject poverty still remaining of the then current situation, to take us on a journey that ends on almost a sense of forboding dread in the closing shots (almost á la Lynchian) outside these hovels. ("Pietro's wife thinks he's betrayed her, dragging them to this new place." Exactly!)
This journey is sorta hosted by a sort of (Dickens) ghost of the past / future guide, Brighella (in an only 'starring' role, it would seem), introduced right at the beginning at a (happy) funfair, but soon to show him walking backwards out of a deserted audience chaired (?!) road, as though indicating himself deserted, turfed out of society, as he tells us he has recently been made unemployed. The next in the opening shots is accompanied by a singer whose lines include (in English given translation) "Poor people and no pay, tired and long suffering, dogged by poverty - throughout the whole wide world." So in effect; Meyer is clearly setting out his take on his task from the very start.
The documentary aspects includes shots of a coalmine soon to be closed down, whilst a newly arrived young Italian, Guiseppe (Cerqua), wanders about the slagheap scarred landscape, voicing his future hopes to be bike mechanic, and NOT go down the mines. All well and good, except I couldn't discern from Meyer's documentary telling - and so on behalf of the Ministry backers - what alternative was supposed to be on offer for them - although as journey guide, a somewhat disconnected, sorta supernatural Brighella does show to the new young boy a fabulous slow vista shot of the overall area, new and old side by side, like some biblical angel of hope offering 'behold I give to you'.
Instead, we get to see an interesting opposites presentation, in first how the miners are brought up from down below in a lift of which modern day torturers surely took note of how to terrorise squeeze human beings into a confined tiny space and then wind them down into the dark - and that stacked at three times one upon above one another, in a 'depth' of horror for the working classes shown in all its brief sequence. One of the last out i.e. from the third level down of the stacked on top of each other lift arrangement, a big burly bloke at that, at the top still beams (relieved to be back in the sun, no doubt), with the comment that he has worked like so for .. wait for it .. THIRTY THREE years!!!!
The contrast is that we are also shown extensive scenes of the workers' children out of school playing: for this they uncover 'griddles' (flat cooking pans) which they use to now go the other way of their fathers, not down into the earth, but high atop of the adjcent slagheap of detritus ejected from the mining operation**, to then slide / sledge down on the tiny round 'griddles' barely protecting their backsides, competing to see which team can get to the bottom quickest, without in the process, tipping or falling off: so here comes the next inferred 'horror' in that, think on that: slagheaps are mounds of coalmining dust and clinker: sharp, dirty, harsh - and more: not only do they mostly have short trousers and bare arms, but seems the best sliders guide their progress using their bare hands on the slagheap! Can you imagine the parental washing of abrasions and 'injuries' surely sustained? (By the way, one of the boys is crippled; but still he loyally follows his able bodied chums all across the wastelands: and our focussed on boy (Luigi Favotto, possibly) is fatherless, lost to the mines, but reluctant to tell the newbies such sad info .. again, what was Meyer trying to sneak past his funders?) There are several other incongruous scenes mused on by Brighella: one on insects, arthropods and molluscs caught together, but can they mix he wonders, and yet another where he entices the boys with non-existent sweets (?!), although not so if they can believe this = what on Earth is Meyer surreptitiously slipping into the narrative?
But, in this what could be a merely mundane documentary recording, we're not done yet: as the day closes, we're taken into one of the parent's hovel homes, a - presumably amateur actor*** - 'Father' sits, posed in somewhat disconcerting stillness, with his children climbing up on him, whilst apparently entertaining the local coalmine owner (!) and priest***in his rundown home: this seems to foreshadow the a tad - unintentionally, or actually quite so ... - now discombobulating end, first as with now wraith like Brighella - either not clearly directed, or strangely so - hesitates to enter the home (there is a priest there?); after he does, he dosen't linger long before returning to outside dusk to share a few words with Luigi, the now the last to settle home young boy, seeming to eye all this with uncertainty, and to be offered some words of comfort / advice, as the priest and coalmine owner leave, the latter with some edifying commentary about women for the priest (see quotes sidebar) and the fact that he's also abandoning all this to open a hotel on the coast .. finally we get the denouement which I challenge you to not get some sort of spooky frisson from. (WARNING, PLOT SPOILING UPCOMING = DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER) in the dusk, the boy now circles a background sapling whilst our guide, host (wraith!) exits stage left, white shirt, presumably Meyer deliberately directed, brightly lit: presumably also directed, he tarries for just a fleeting moment looking off to what we can't see, stage left; then he ambles on, out of shot focussed on all the way, into the dark: it brought to my mind a sort of feeling that I got when I first saw the final shots of 'The Blair Witch Project'!
SO : since originally it became that it was only shown "a handful of times in Belgium and at some International festivals before it sank into oblivion"*, if you can locate it, for a common or garden documentary, this has become utterly unmissable!
EXTRA: on the dvd I got, there is an extra short of ' Klinkaart' (1956), another worklife documentary experience, this time on brick making: in these times of #metoo, what is depicted, inferred, in this one is equally utterly - horrendously! -stunning: and again, if I understand right, all underatken by amateurs actually in the business: so they should know: all recorded for posterity why patriarchal entitllement should be done away with!
* It's worth quoting from the dvd accompanying booklet: "By sticking to showing the facts and their extraordinary and multiple contradictions, he caused considerable embarrassment." (David Houbrechts)
** For the socially redeeming use of such, check episode 3 of the third series to 'The Crown' on 'Aberfan', where in real life - just two years after this was made - hundreds of Welsh (UK) schoolchildren were subsumed, killed by.
*** Tens of names are given at the beginning - listed and playing under their own names it would seem, as Meyer presumably, co-operatively and fairly credited all those that appear e.g. including, in fairness to the Ministry, how much fun the Greek immigrants could have with outside dancing: incidentally in this section, it amused me that he even tried to inject a human / love interest aspect into the unfolding as Guiseppe makes a play for a girl: it also has a denouememt surely worthy of a sequel ... :-)
**** unfortunately, I am not up enough on my Catholicism lore as to what the extended Priest (uncredited), fish - and tethered goat! - scene could all mean: although surely something of significance, if you are a Bunuel fan, too.
That all bubbles underneath the early shots shown - in loyalty (to funders, the Ministry) - of both pristine, newly constructed homes and school, but soon along the way, laying bare the abject poverty still remaining of the then current situation, to take us on a journey that ends on almost a sense of forboding dread in the closing shots (almost á la Lynchian) outside these hovels. ("Pietro's wife thinks he's betrayed her, dragging them to this new place." Exactly!)
This journey is sorta hosted by a sort of (Dickens) ghost of the past / future guide, Brighella (in an only 'starring' role, it would seem), introduced right at the beginning at a (happy) funfair, but soon to show him walking backwards out of a deserted audience chaired (?!) road, as though indicating himself deserted, turfed out of society, as he tells us he has recently been made unemployed. The next in the opening shots is accompanied by a singer whose lines include (in English given translation) "Poor people and no pay, tired and long suffering, dogged by poverty - throughout the whole wide world." So in effect; Meyer is clearly setting out his take on his task from the very start.
The documentary aspects includes shots of a coalmine soon to be closed down, whilst a newly arrived young Italian, Guiseppe (Cerqua), wanders about the slagheap scarred landscape, voicing his future hopes to be bike mechanic, and NOT go down the mines. All well and good, except I couldn't discern from Meyer's documentary telling - and so on behalf of the Ministry backers - what alternative was supposed to be on offer for them - although as journey guide, a somewhat disconnected, sorta supernatural Brighella does show to the new young boy a fabulous slow vista shot of the overall area, new and old side by side, like some biblical angel of hope offering 'behold I give to you'.
Instead, we get to see an interesting opposites presentation, in first how the miners are brought up from down below in a lift of which modern day torturers surely took note of how to terrorise squeeze human beings into a confined tiny space and then wind them down into the dark - and that stacked at three times one upon above one another, in a 'depth' of horror for the working classes shown in all its brief sequence. One of the last out i.e. from the third level down of the stacked on top of each other lift arrangement, a big burly bloke at that, at the top still beams (relieved to be back in the sun, no doubt), with the comment that he has worked like so for .. wait for it .. THIRTY THREE years!!!!
The contrast is that we are also shown extensive scenes of the workers' children out of school playing: for this they uncover 'griddles' (flat cooking pans) which they use to now go the other way of their fathers, not down into the earth, but high atop of the adjcent slagheap of detritus ejected from the mining operation**, to then slide / sledge down on the tiny round 'griddles' barely protecting their backsides, competing to see which team can get to the bottom quickest, without in the process, tipping or falling off: so here comes the next inferred 'horror' in that, think on that: slagheaps are mounds of coalmining dust and clinker: sharp, dirty, harsh - and more: not only do they mostly have short trousers and bare arms, but seems the best sliders guide their progress using their bare hands on the slagheap! Can you imagine the parental washing of abrasions and 'injuries' surely sustained? (By the way, one of the boys is crippled; but still he loyally follows his able bodied chums all across the wastelands: and our focussed on boy (Luigi Favotto, possibly) is fatherless, lost to the mines, but reluctant to tell the newbies such sad info .. again, what was Meyer trying to sneak past his funders?) There are several other incongruous scenes mused on by Brighella: one on insects, arthropods and molluscs caught together, but can they mix he wonders, and yet another where he entices the boys with non-existent sweets (?!), although not so if they can believe this = what on Earth is Meyer surreptitiously slipping into the narrative?
But, in this what could be a merely mundane documentary recording, we're not done yet: as the day closes, we're taken into one of the parent's hovel homes, a - presumably amateur actor*** - 'Father' sits, posed in somewhat disconcerting stillness, with his children climbing up on him, whilst apparently entertaining the local coalmine owner (!) and priest***in his rundown home: this seems to foreshadow the a tad - unintentionally, or actually quite so ... - now discombobulating end, first as with now wraith like Brighella - either not clearly directed, or strangely so - hesitates to enter the home (there is a priest there?); after he does, he dosen't linger long before returning to outside dusk to share a few words with Luigi, the now the last to settle home young boy, seeming to eye all this with uncertainty, and to be offered some words of comfort / advice, as the priest and coalmine owner leave, the latter with some edifying commentary about women for the priest (see quotes sidebar) and the fact that he's also abandoning all this to open a hotel on the coast .. finally we get the denouement which I challenge you to not get some sort of spooky frisson from. (WARNING, PLOT SPOILING UPCOMING = DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER) in the dusk, the boy now circles a background sapling whilst our guide, host (wraith!) exits stage left, white shirt, presumably Meyer deliberately directed, brightly lit: presumably also directed, he tarries for just a fleeting moment looking off to what we can't see, stage left; then he ambles on, out of shot focussed on all the way, into the dark: it brought to my mind a sort of feeling that I got when I first saw the final shots of 'The Blair Witch Project'!
SO : since originally it became that it was only shown "a handful of times in Belgium and at some International festivals before it sank into oblivion"*, if you can locate it, for a common or garden documentary, this has become utterly unmissable!
EXTRA: on the dvd I got, there is an extra short of ' Klinkaart' (1956), another worklife documentary experience, this time on brick making: in these times of #metoo, what is depicted, inferred, in this one is equally utterly - horrendously! -stunning: and again, if I understand right, all underatken by amateurs actually in the business: so they should know: all recorded for posterity why patriarchal entitllement should be done away with!
* It's worth quoting from the dvd accompanying booklet: "By sticking to showing the facts and their extraordinary and multiple contradictions, he caused considerable embarrassment." (David Houbrechts)
** For the socially redeeming use of such, check episode 3 of the third series to 'The Crown' on 'Aberfan', where in real life - just two years after this was made - hundreds of Welsh (UK) schoolchildren were subsumed, killed by.
*** Tens of names are given at the beginning - listed and playing under their own names it would seem, as Meyer presumably, co-operatively and fairly credited all those that appear e.g. including, in fairness to the Ministry, how much fun the Greek immigrants could have with outside dancing: incidentally in this section, it amused me that he even tried to inject a human / love interest aspect into the unfolding as Guiseppe makes a play for a girl: it also has a denouememt surely worthy of a sequel ... :-)
**** unfortunately, I am not up enough on my Catholicism lore as to what the extended Priest (uncredited), fish - and tethered goat! - scene could all mean: although surely something of significance, if you are a Bunuel fan, too.
