“It’s a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can’t eat for eight hours; he can’t drink for eight hours; he can’t make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work. ” ― William Faulkner

Michael Glawogger’s documentary, Workingman’s Death, introduces itself as “5 Portraits of Work in the 21st Century.” This characterization of each chapter as a “portrait” is appropriate. As frames move past our screen, a kind of morbid beauty arises, tempting us to interpret the brutal yet powerful scenes as dynamic paintings. Workers speak to the camera, yet we don’t know what questions prompted them, and we are given no commentary, narration, or description to help us paint a fuller picture. The documentary has no interest in the outside world, only the workers, their work, and the act of labor itself. Ignorant of the larger context surrounding each chapter, we can only observe what is presented: the hardships, suffering, and inhumane conditions inherent to undignified labor.

Workers, utilizing that all-too-often celebrated human trait of adaptability, have conformed to the demands of their respective jobs with troubling efficiency. Their tools act as extensions of their limbs, wielding hammers, crowbars, knives, torches, and even lances, with the same dexterity with which we hold our phones and pens. Even the movement of their bodies yields to the demands of the job, walking, crawling, kneeling, and bracing in bodily patterns unknown to many of us. They have become their work, and it is this merging of the laborer with their labor that Workingman’s Death focuses on.

Glawogger, like any good documentary filmmaker, had to limit the scope of his project. In this case, he chose to forgo the broader story surrounding labor in order to paint portraits of work in the modern world. In the upcoming essays, I’ll attempt to develop a negative image of Glawogger’s film. Where he focuses on the work itself, I will not. Where he omits background knowledge, I will supply it. In doing so, I hope to reframe the workers not as isolated subjects, but as participants in the larger economy responsible for their working conditions. Like any good portrait, a closer inspection can reveal details the viewer never expected to see.