Berlinale 2009 - 9 - Forum - Zum Vergleich
Zum Vergleich / By Comparison (Harun Farocki, Germany/Austria) (World Premiere)
Monday, February 9
Read the Forum Synopsis
Where else but the Berlinale Forum could I find a movie that teaches everything there is to know about brickmaking from Gando, Burkina Faso to Fläsch, Switzerland? An exaggeration, of course - we cannot know what it is like to work in a brick factory unless we do it.
But this triumph of cinéma vérité brings us close to the most basic of building materials, and how people construct them in Africa, Asia, and Europe. We also see how people have progressed from highly social, pre-industrial methods of producing bricks to isolated, high-tech modes that humans monitor in silence. And perhaps breaking the cycle to enter new modes of sustainable manufacture.
In Gando, bricks are made by hand from earth watered at the site of construction. The community comes out to observe and converse. Men, women, and children participate and the work seems joyful. In Fläsch, a sense of joy seems to be recaptured as a robot translates an artist’s image onto a brick wall. In between, we see various degrees of exploitation of human and machine labor, and perhaps even learn something new about women and men at work. And in the process, clinics, schools, and homes are built. All in one hour!
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