Women Workers Leaving the Factory (Obreras saliendo de la fábrica) clearly derives its thematic inspiration from the Lumière brothers' Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895), the forty-six second film that was most likely the first ever to be shown in public, and one whose influence, both direct and indirect, throughout the history of the medium was strikingly collaged by the inestimable Harun Farocki in his 1995 documentary essay, Workers Leaving the Factory.
Directed by José Luis Torres Leiva, who was born in Santiago in 1975, this virtually dialogue-free twenty-one minute gem is primarily comprised of sequence shots. It opens with an image of a factory's smoke stacks before individually introducing the four women workers who make up the cast. The eldest, clearly having health problems, is seen at her locker wincing in pain. The richly detailed sound-design suggests that she also has an inner-ear problem, perhaps caused by the grinding industrial roar to which she is daily subjected. The two younger women are both showcased with fluid, agile camera movements, emphasizing their youth and vitality, as they make their way back to the work stations. Torres Leiva poetically contrasts the women's monotonous life at work with their excursion into a natural environment before closing the film on a poignant note.
Torres Leiva has mentioned the likes of Tarr Béla, Pedro Costa, arūnas Bartas and Lisandro Alonso among his influences, directors who are generally keener regarding the interplay between the textures of sound and image and the sensations this aesthetic conjures up than they are in traditional narrative structures. He has attempted to do likewise in this film, not to mention in his first feature-length fiction, The Sky, the Earth and the Rain (2008). (Besides directing numerous other shorts and experimental videos, he has also completed a few documentary features and featurettes.) Listed by Thai master Apichatpong Weerasethakul as one of his all-time favorites, Women Workers Leaving the Factory is among the more auspicious shorts I've seen in recent years.
