Click to read the article
Comment
06/24/06
Workingman's Death (2006)
73 %
Reviews Counted: 11 Fresh: 8 Rotten:3 Average Rating: 6.4/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 2 mins
Synopsis: The toil of the workingman is the fascinating subject for this documentary from Austrian director Michael Glawogger. Taking five groups of workers from five different countries, Glawogger looks at the perils of being a coal miner in the Ukraine, a slaughterhouse worker in Nigeria, a sulfur... [More]
Genre: Education/General Interest
Director: Michael Glawogger
Reviews
1 - 13 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Top Critic
This documentary about men and women performing brutal work tasks for next to no money is full of arresting and eloquent images.
05/05/06
Visually, technically, the film is undeniably a work of art, with all aspects -- sound, editing, cinematography, music -- coming together in a stunning symphony.
03/18/06
There's scant dialogue in Workingman's Death, but little is needed when majestic camera work by Wolfgang Thaler tells the story so well.
02/24/06
It's a triumph of the human spirit that so many people in deadly jobs are able, nevertheless, to marry and have a few happy moments despite lives of hellish labor. Glawogger's intrepid camera finds both the shame and the grace in it.
02/24/06
It's not exactly a good time at the movies, and even as pure education, it's a rather dull film with very little dialogue.
02/24/06
Michael Glawogger's glamorized documentary observes laborers from around the world going to hell and back, day after day, year after year, to eke out subsistence livings.
02/23/06
Top Critic
The patina of this avant-garde exercise is swanky and alluring, but chip away at it and you will expose a hollow center.
02/22/06
Glawogger is an extraordinarily elegant filmmaker with a photographer's eye for striking compositions.
02/21/06
Glawogger's film may be thematically loose-jointed, but Wolfgang Thaler's cinematography is the glue.
02/21/06
Comes soaked in good old-fashioned humanist respect for the dignity of labor, but eventually grows a little monotonous.
09/12/05
Top Critic Top Critic1 - 13 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Related Forums
(Docu)-WORKINGMAN'S DEATH goes from Film Comment Selects straight into a NYC theater
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/22/06
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/22/06
(Docu)-WORKINGMAN'S DEATH goes from Film Comment Selects straight into a NYC theater
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/22/06
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/22/06
(Docu)-WORKINGMAN'S DEATH goes from Film Comment Selects straight into a NYC theater
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/22/06
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/22/06
(Docu)-WORKINGMAN'S DEATH goes from Film Comment Selects straight into a NYC theater
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/22/06
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/22/06
IGN RSS Feeds