La reprise du travail aux usines Wonder / Resumption of work at the Wonder factory (1968)

Jacques Willemont, Pierre Bonneau, Liane Estiez-Willemont. 1968, 11 min, 16mm-to-digital. In French with English subtitles. A single shot that, in capturing the last nine minutes of a June 1968 battery factory strike in suburban Paris, uncovers classical tragedy at the heart of observational cinema. WONDER’s impromptu portrait of betrayal and deceit crystallizes the social tensions between the May uprising’s paradigmatic figures (workers, unions, students, bosses) as well as the gender imbalance that gave rise to the feminist movement in the months that followed. It does this so perfectly, in fact, that its presentation of direct testimony seems uncannily close to scripted theater, as if the breakdown in political representation that characterizes the May events were doubled by another taking place within representation itself. It’s hard to think of a film that better encapsulates both the subversive promise of this radical moment and its bitter lessons. Thank you to Anthology Film Archives