The galley slaves (1969)
Les Galériens
This film traces the painful story of a worker in a lime factory who, due to a lack of professional safety and given the non-existence of sickness benefit, finds himself in a most dramatic situation. To provide for the needs of the family, his wife sees herself obliged to part with all that constituted the already poor furnishings of the home. Anything goes, but the needs are still pressing. With nothing left to sell, she will ignore any concept of dignity and sell her own body. The mine continues to operate nonetheless. The film is worth especially by the first sequences which make burst the screen by their force and their realism. In their concern to transport the harsh, noisy, inhuman, destructive reality of the workers, the images manage to touch and convince the spectators, more than the (rather melodramatic) sequences of the degradation of family life. 16mm, black and white, mute
