Machines (2017)
There are some environments and subject matters out there that for an insightful or harrowingly perceptive documentary to spring up, all you have to do is just let your camera roll. Rahul Jain’s debut feature Machines, that focuses on one textile factory in south India, must be one of them. It is an intimate look at the working conditions of one textile factory in India, and we learn that twelve hour’ shifts and unsanitary conditions full of chemical toxicity are the norm for the workers of this factory. The workers control the many machines of the factory, mixing chemicals to dye materials, as well as labour near open furnaces.
Clearly, the machines of the title must be these overworked people labouring in extremely hard, unfair and potentially dangerous conditions. They are “robots” doing their job because the opposite would be starvation for them and their families. “Poverty is harassment”, the documentary says, and it is sheer poverty afflicting these workers that prevents them from gaining access to fairer and more bearable jobs that are not in existence anywhere near them anyway. One interviewee tells us how no one forces him to work under these horrifying conditions, but he has no choice but to do so, and the implication of his bosses should probably be that he should consider himself lucky to have this job in the first place, anyway.
Some commentators stated this documentary presents “Dickensian” working conditions. This is ironic. British author Charles Dickens not only, after the 1857 Indian rebellion, wrote that it would be appropriate to exterminate the Indian race, but it was under the British rule that India’s economic decline occurred in the first half of the twentieth century. For example, before the seventeenth century’s colonial rule, India produced some twenty-five percent of the world’s textiles. That number fell to just two percent in 1947. The factory in this documentary does not have any “Dickensian” working conditions (though the meaning is clearly “gruelling”). It has something much worse – “Indian” working conditions, with a historical shadow of the British privilege thrown over them.
The ending of the documentary is downbeat and underwhelming, but the observational approach works, and the sporadic statements from workers interviewed are thought-provoking. The camera zooms to the sweaty bodies of the workers, capturing the vivid colours of materials they deal with. There is no complete naturalness to Rahul Jain’s camera approach, but there are many beautiful shots, and the good intention of the director to bring this important social issue to the forefront is evident.
Spotlight on Film 
I didn’t even know that about Charles Dickens waxing genocidal thoughts about the Indian people. That’s disgusting! It must be harrowing to watch. There was one documentary I saw involving sweatshops called Mickey Mouse Goes to Haiti which made me more aware of that situation even if it was released in the 90s.
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Yes, there was this British sentiment at the time, but when I heard that present-day factory conditions in India are described as “Dickensian” it appeared to me so ironic, when the likes of British elite like Dickens and his views were then responsible for Indian mass economy’s stagnation and deindustrialisation from which it never even recovered to this day – I find hard time accepting this. History is not something in the past, it continues to shape the present day in a myriad of ways.
I do want to see Mickey Mouse Goes to Haiti. Actually, just the other day I saw a new segment on YouTube about Disney’s atrocious record when it comes to compensating their Disneyland’ employees for their work-related injuries, too. Just shows one doesn’t get to the top unless there is much self-interest and greed on one’s part.
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That is sad knowing that even though I was aware how India was a British colony. I can’t even look at Rudyard Kipling with his pro-colonizing mindset and how he invented much less extolling the “white man’s burden” trope. It’s disgusting knowing what I know now about Charles Dickens especially if he was cheerleading the economic downfall in addition to wishing Indian people were exterminated. To quote Dr. John Henrik Clarke “All history is a current event.”
Thanks, and I saw you checked out that review. You can watch the whole thing legally on YouTube which is nice even if they break it up in two parts. That’s sad knowing that about Disneyland’s employees. I even talked about Disney’s recent legal issues on my main blog where I talked about a wrongful death lawsuit where a widower’s wife died from anaphylactic shock from food allergies even though they asked Disneyworld multiple times if the restaurants had accommodations for those with food allergies. Disney tried to block a wrongful death lawsuit because (I wish I was making this up) the plaintiff had a Disney+ account briefly from a free trial and there was a user agreement that said people can’t take any legal action against them or any of their affiliates. This caused a ton of outrage and legal experts said it was one of the worst clauses in a user agreement ever.
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Disney has become such a tainted name, hasn’t it? And it is good that such documentaries are freely available, people should be aware of them.
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That is so true and I feel like I’ve become more disillusioned the more I learn about them. I’m glad these documentaries exist such as Mickey Mouse Goes to Haiti, Mickey Mouse Monopoly, and The Lion’s Share to name a few about their different issues. Sometimes I wonder how much people know about that company’s issues or if they are just apathetic to the business practices and malfeasance happening.
I almost mentioned this in The Promised Land given who’s in it, but how this comment conversation is going, I’ll bring it up here. I found out recently that Mads Mikkelson is going to be in a certain Disney prequel not-live action movie where he’s going to voice the lead villain who is going to be a white lion. Another blogger even mentioned that people on the internet made the most obvious reference involving a certain 60s anime character, and might as well be an admission of their un-originality. SMH.
Besides that, I’ll have to check out Machines whenever I can.
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Interesting. I didn’t know that about Mikkelson, and never obviously watched any live action. The recent positive thing about these live actions – loosely related – is that I want to believe that the recent Snow White marketing disaster (and partly The Acolyte reception) is now teaching Disney a thing or two, maybe not about “borrowing/stealing” material, but remaining faithful to the original vision, which is also kind of important. This lesson, definitely already swallowed by Disney, does come decades too late, but perhaps their pride, stubbornness and omnipotence have received a downgrade or two.
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Yeah, it was weird just finding this out of the blue when I was minding my own business even if I knew that prequel is coming out this year. Good on you for not watching any of the live action remakes. I heard The Acolyte wasn’t renewed for another season despite being part of the Star Wars franchise. I know there was controversy with the stuff live action Snow White’s actress said a while ago, but there’s another marketing disaster? Oh, wow! Even in addition to the Mikkelson situation and people already using that as a layup to reference Osamu Tezuka’s work, apparently there was some outrage in that fandom where in one of the trailers it revealed how the two principal characters are not blood related unlike the prequel books (I’m embarrassed to admit how much I know since I used to like that movie franchise when I was a kid) and the people who casually use Hamlet as a defense mechanism can find even less similarities not that both respective plots were similar other than the obvious plot point of the original king being murdered. I hope this stuff backfires with more things coming to light with what that company has done.
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Yes, there is more than meets the eye with these sequels and fans cannot just be ignored. And, yes, you can definitely say there was another marketing disaster with Disney and Snow White and this time they cannot just ignore it. Their Snow White live action is at the point of being cancelled altogether because of the original animation’s fans – the Snow White trailer got 1.1 million! dislikes (and only 84 thousand likes) on YouTube – a Disney record, and now the company does not know where to bury its head with emergency meetings held and lead actress Zegler fired from future Disney roles. It did not help that they left the comments section open on Youtube (you can imagine the nature of comments there). No one wants this film and Disney now knows it too. They apparently re-shot the film a number of times and it would lose them so many millions already.
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Absolutely and I can see how social media can play into that with the feedback. I read a little bit more about these controversies. Wow, the dislike ratio got that high? That is preposterous! Keep in mind, this is a live-action remake to the first ever full-length movie in the Disney Animated Canon. I didn’t realize how many fans were were of that movie given how old it is, but maybe it’s partially because of classic Disney tax. I could be wrong. Apparently there was another controversy about the casting of the dwarves with only one little person playing one of the characters confirmed with the rest being CGI figures. Even though Zegler didn’t deserve the racist backlash with her being half-Colombian, she was saying some questionable things while also trashing the original movie. Is the original Disney film worth criticizing with the damsel in distress stuff and the problematic true love’s kiss plot point? Of course, but why did she sign on to do this if she’s biting the hand that’s feeding her? I can see why that would be draining Disney’s coffers with the re-shooting especially with how much they put into production in general.
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Yes, I think it is by far the worst nightmare for Disney just the way it all snowballed. The news just swept me up and I got my opinion, of course, I don’t know, you may not agree. I have nothing against Zegler and her skin colour isn’t an issue for the majority as well, I think – it is everything else. If they thought “it is all so the 1930s”, they should have just left it alone. Zegler and Gadot as Evil Queen are miscast. The point of Snow White is that she is so sweet, very kind and shy, and very innocent and helpful, and selfless, all that. That’s the point of the whole story plus her love story. Otherwise it is not Snow White and her story. Zegler’s loud personality, boisterous mannerism, etc. on and off set is just completely opposite of this version of Snow White. I am not criticising Zegler for that, but just her cast.
And, I am not really a fan of the original film, and these 1.1 million people who dislike the trailer are not all fans – I think they just have a brain and a pair of eyes. I think even people who do NOT like the original film thought Disney messed up with what makes us human. According to Disney, kindness, sweetness, simplicity, shyness, etc. in a woman should be left in the 1930s and search for true love should be eliminated in 2024, but aren’t we all different, and want different things? That was the trigger for people, too.
I am not defending Snow White’s “damsel in distress” or concepts of the 1930s (they were problematic), but there is an argument that Snow White is in fact the bravest Princess there was. There are many faces of courage, people do what they can, and many people fell in love with SW because of her stoicism, she remained her happy, innocent and sweet self in the face of evil. All people are different. They didn’t like her wanting to help out by tidying up or being sweet? – they had an option not to do the film. Snow White is Snow White – she would do everything for others – she wants to see people cared for and fed and clean. That’s just the self-less character she is, whether “modern” Disney likes it or not. SW did what she could – EVEN if that meant just washing dishes. As for “dated”, it wasn’t about the cartoon at all – it is a popular German fairy tale dating to 1812, and that was yet another trigger for people. Disney re-writes any of that, and this is the TRUE end for many, – it goes well beyond politics, Disney fandom or anything. What’s next, then? Let’s rewrite the Bible?, they ask. Now, THAT’s dated, isn’t it? Mmm, sorry for this opinionated “essay” 🙂
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That’s certainly possible for it to be a nightmare for Disney with all this information. I didn’t think you had an issue with Zegler’s skin color anyway and I didn’t have an issue with it at all. The backlash on that front is just stupid. I hear you about there being miscast roles. Who wanted to see Wonder Woman as the Evil Queen? Then again I facepalmed years ago when I found out Chiwetel Ejiofor would voice Scar which made absolutely no sense to me even if he’s a good actor (a lot or reviewers weren’t a fan of his performance anyway and I think it was so miscast). They could still have those traits of Snow White while avoiding the trappings of the original, but the controversies haven’t helped.
You do make good points there. As a man, I’m in no room to judge on what makes proper femininity for a character like Snow White, but I do believe a character can have traits of being kind, sweet, and shy while still being a dynamic character.
Of course, and I never thought you were defending the less-savory things about the original Snow White movie. That’s an interesting argument about Snow White being brave by staying innocent. That’s right about Disney re-writing these original fairy tales because so many people get shocked when they read the original stories or at the very least watch an authentic adaptation of the story to show how dark these stories can be (The Little Mermaid comes to mind given the ending). However, people can be so Disney-pilled to the point of not accepting other potential versions of these stories whether they are fairy tales, classic literature, or two examples involving anime predating two of their IPs. Don’t worry about your ranting “essay”. I’ve done that with my own posts, too!
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Yes, people don’t have a problem with Disney’s mere taking inspiration from fairy-tales and making their own stories like I think they did in Tangled and definitely in Frozen, but blatantly and clearly re-writing the original in this way when new generation would clearly more likely to see the film than read the story? Well, Snow White & the Huntsman was a clear modification, re-imagining – and people never had problem with that. And, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar is hilarious, in my opinion. Actually, I was forced to sit through a trailer to that new Lion King abomination (while I was waiting to see Beetlejuice 2 in cinema) and I thought the voicing was simply terrible. Perhaps I don’t know the current standard for that in the industry because I hardly watch any live action, but I thought that aspect was just so bad I could not concentrate on anything shown. It was just unbelievable. Those animals clearly speaking like “I-am-a-“modern”-human-being-and-will-now-just-pop-into-this-Starbucks”. I keep imagining faces behind the film. Clearly that should not be happening.
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I hear what you mean and that makes sense. Even I’ve been guilty of thinking so many Disney movies were the “real” versions of these fairy tales or other pre-existing stories. I haven’t seen Snow White & The Huntsman, but I did hear it was faithful to the original story even if it had more of an action fantasy bent. That’s what I heard from reviews of that embarrassing 2019 remake where people said he was okay whenever he was talking calmly, but sounded unintelligently goofy when trying to be angry, overdramatic, or diabolical. Ejiofor is a good actor and has done a great job in other movies, but him as Scar makes no sense at all! I’m so sorry to hear that you suffered watching the Mufasa prequel trailer as you were watching the Beetlejuice 2. I heard even Lion King fans weren’t liking the trailer as it was “soulless”, found out that the title character is adopted and not born a royal. Would the character I will address as Kiros the wicked White Lion (patent pending) open them up to more criticism of them lying about not knowing about Tezuka? It doesn’t enrage me compared to the cultural appropriation, depiction of the hyenas, the Mbube/Lion sleeps Tonight case, or recently how they butcher some Swahili names or is guilty of the “Africa is a country” trope, but it’s still annoying. It does sound ridiculous with the voice acting and it’s literally insulting to my intelligence how they would have bad acting or how they’re hyping this up as a “live action prequel” when it’s just CGI and no human characters in sight! At least the 2016 Jungle Book remake had Mowgli as a human constant, but I feel like I’m looking at just computers making realistic (most of the time) animals if they can talk and sing. I agree with what you mean even if this conversation pivoted towards this way. It’s great to see film critics like you covering so many subjects outside of the mainstream and not giving Disney a pass when others wouldn’t.
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**unintentionally goofy. Sorry for this and any typos.
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Yeah, agree. It is not “live action”, it is all “computer action” nowadays, but they would not say that, obviously. Reading your comment got me thinking of just how removed the industry has become from its audience and fans. It is like people who are making all these films are solely driven by money – obviously, but also by their peculiar world view taken from those surrounding them – a very niche group + a certain number of prominent published media. The result is as though they are making films “for themselves” and other industry representatives and heads of a number of magazines. Not sure if this comment of mine makes any sense.
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Exactly. I get what you’re saying and it does make sense. The industry has been about making money for decades, but what I see is more of a complacency and cynical hubris when making these films based on pre-existing properties as a safe bet for a quick buck. That’s a good way to describe this as making movies for themselves and arguably their shareholders as well as the “elite” critics out there. They’re so out of touch with reality and it’s no wonder I’ve been watching independent or international films a lot more for years. Just recently, I watched a Senegalese movie which was quite fascinating which was an adaptation of a Swiss play of all things.
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