Fabrika ou le travail ouvrier postsoviétique

Abstract

In 2004, a young Russian director, Serguei Loznitsa, made a film called Fabrika using a decrepit kombinat factory that had been a combination steelworks and brickyard. The film’s sumptuous style lends itself to a multitude of analyses. The most straightforward one is that this documentary talks about the difficulties and dangers inherent to this kind of work environment. But the film might also be viewed as a tragic metaphor about the human condition, assimilated with a Sisyphian calvary. At the same time, the author’s main subject remains this rundown kombinat, a legacy of the Soviet period, with the end of the film portraying workers who have been broken down and reduced dust. The idea behind this article is that cinematographic signatures can communicate abstract thinking via iconic and sound signifiers, much in the same way as alphabetic signatures use verbal signifiers.

Keywords

• sociological documentary
• filmic sociology
• cinematographic signature
• Soviet cinema
• concept
• percept