Mine

One of the most remarkable Polish post-war documentaries about labour. Natalia Brzozowska takes us underground, where the miners’ day is shaped by the rhythm of machinery, the weight of their bodies and constant danger. Rather than creating a conventional image of the heroic worker, camera close-ups, stark contrasts of light and shadow, moving coal conveyors, shovels, drills and fragments of human bodies to create an almost abstract, expressionistic portrait of the mine. Kazimierz Serocki’s music and the film’s rhythmic editing turn the miners’ labour into something resembling choreography, while the mine itself takes on the qualities of a living, pulsating organism.

Amid this mechanical rhythm, women waiting above ground appear on screen, their anxious faces accompanied by prayers to Saint Barbara. When disaster strikes, the film takes on a dramatic dimension, revealing not only the physical effort involved, but also the fear and psychological cost of working underground. This unconventional form set Mine apart from the propaganda-driven films about labour of the period. Following the 1949 Film-makers’ Congress in Wisła, Brzozowska was forced to make a public self-criticism for her “formalism” and “bourgeois aesthetics” and was subsequently prevented from continuing her work as a filmmaker. Today, the film remains one of the most compelling examples of post-war Polish documentary cinema – a powerful portrait of labour, the body, fear and human endurance.