Workingman's Death (2005)

Workingman’s Death follows the trail of the HEROES in the illegal mines of the Ukraine, sniffs out GHOSTS among the sulfur workers in Indonesia, finds itself face to face with LIONS at a slaughterhouse in Nigeria, mingles with BROTHERS as they cut a huge oil tanker into pieces in Pakistan, and joins Chinese steel workers in hoping for a glorious FUTURE. Meanwhile, the future is now in Germany, where a major smelting plant of bygone days has been converted into a bright and shiny leisure park.

Imagine the epic photographic series of Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado granted startling mobility, and you’ll have some sense of Glawogger’s remarkable presentation of extreme labour worldwide. From illegal Ukrainian coal mining to Indonesian sulphur extraction via Pakistani shipbreaking yards and the Boschian inferno of a Nigerian slaughterhouse (difficult viewing indeed), it becomes very clear that beneath the watercooler veneer of the selectively operating post-industrial information age, work for many millions proceeds apace with even greater risks and hardship. Essential viewing, this committed work restores worth and value to those who, unseen and unheard, literally create our world.

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