Brindisi 65 (Cecilia Mangini, 1966) eng-spa sub

“A real cathedral in the desert” is how Mangini described the newly built Monteshell petrochemical plant, the biggest in the country and the bureaucratic force that brings together the managers and workers – both current and former – put before the camera in Brindisi ’65. This cultural and economic disconnect is conveyed through images of young children fulfilling domestic duties in overpopulated living conditions, as a voice-over reads headlines from the national press announcing the factory’s arrival. Meanwhile, the managerial classes, who have moved South to exploit the region’s desperate work situation, celebrate away from public view, shot in such unflattering, grotesque close-ups that they take on a fisheyed distortion. There, they feast open-mouthed and exchange misogynistic and racist jokes about the local population. Later, a group of workers is asked to comment on their work situation. Only those who appear on the condition of anonymity will tell us what all of them seem to understand: that there are rewards for loyalty, that unionisation leads to forced isolation, and that the factory will always find another desperate worker to replace the dissenter.