''Workingman's Death'' is a 2005 Austrian-German

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

written and directed by Michael Glawogger. It premiered at the 2005

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival he ...

. The film deals with the extremes to which workers go to earn a living in several countries around the world. The film is composed of six differently titled chapters. The first five depict hazardous conditions of hard laborers around the world and the sixth shows contrasting scenes of youths in a former German industrial complex which had been converted into a leisure park: #''Heroes'' – Miners of

Donets Basin The Seversky Donets () or Siverskyi Donets (), usually simply called the Donets, is a river on the south of the East European Plain. It originates in the Central Russian Upland, north of Belgorod, flows south-east through Ukraine (Kharkiv, Don ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

#''Ghosts'' – Sulfur carriers in

Ijen Map of Ijen Crater, where sulfur is mined The Ijen volcano complex is a group of composite volcanoes located on the border between Banyuwangi Regency and Bondowoso Regency of East Java, Indonesia. It is known for its blue fire, acidic crate ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

#''Lions'' – Butchers in an open-air market in Port Harcourt,

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

#''Brothers'' – Welders in the

Gadani ship-breaking yard Gadani ship-breaking yard is the world's third largest ship breaking yard located across a long beachfront at Gadani, Pakistan. The yard consists of 132 ship-breaking plots."Record 107 ships dismantled at Gaddani" by Parvaiz Ishfaq Rana, ''Dawn' ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

#''The Future'' – Steel workers in

Liaoning Liaoning () is a coastal province in Northeast China that is the smallest, southernmost, and most populous province in the region. With its capital at Shenyang, it is located on the northern shore of the Yellow Sea, and is the northernmost ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

#''Epilogue'' – Youths in

Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord Landschaftspark is a public park located in Duisburg- Meiderich, Germany. It was designed in 1991 by Latz + Partner (Peter Latz), with the intention that it work to heal and understand the industrial past, rather than trying to reject it. The pa ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Reception

The film was met with a largely positive critical reception with a 73% approval rating reported by

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

as of March 2011, with several critics praising its visual feel. Walter Addiego of the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...

wrote that "Despite the hardships depicted, many sequences have a dreamlike beauty. In addition, the director has a bone-dry sense of irony; during the Ukraine scenes, he frequently cuts away to a statue of Stakhanov, the 'hero' lauded by the Soviets for his superhuman work habits". Film critic

Nathan Rabin Nathan Rabin (; born April 24, 1976) is an American film and music critic. Rabin was the first head writer for '' The A.V. Club'', a position he held until he left the ''Onion'' organization in 2013.

, writing for

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

, said that "Glawogger is an extraordinarily elegant filmmaker with a photographer's eye for striking compositions. He seems to have selected the jobs documented here as much for their telegenic qualities as their all-around awfulness, and he excels at divining moments of

pure cinema Pure may refer to: Computing * A pure function * A pure virtual function * PureSystems, a family of computer systems introduced by IBM in 2012 * Pure Software, a company founded in 1991 by Reed Hastings to support the Purify tool * Pure-FTPd, ...

and haunting beauty out of the most perilous places and professions on Earth". ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...

s Michael Atkinson wrote that "Glawogger's film may be thematically loose-jointed, but Wolfgang Thaler's cinematography is the glue; the signature move—a flowing

Steadicam Steadicam is a brand of camera stabilizer mounts for Movie camera, motion picture cameras invented by Garrett Brown and introduced in 1975 by Cinema Products Corporation. It was designed to isolate the camera from the camera operator's movement ...

track before or following a subject—blooms into variations on a visceral theme, especially as it rhymes the Nigerian butchers stalking through acres of red mud dragging bull heads with the Indonesians carrying rocks down smoking, tourist-littered mountain paths".

References

External links

Official website
* * * *{{rotten-tomatoes, workingmans_death
Special 4-part TV version of Workingman's Death
2005 films 2005 documentary films Films directed by Michael Glawogger Pashto-language films 2000s German-language films 2000s English-language films Igbo-language films 2000s Mandarin-language films Indonesian-language films 2000s Russian-language films Films set in Ukraine Films set in Indonesia Films set in Port Harcourt Films set in Pakistan Films set in China Documentary films about the labor movement Films scored by John Zorn Yoruba-language films Austrian documentary films 2005 multilingual films Austrian multilingual films