Time, Memory & History in the Labour Documentary Film

By Debra Beattie
Studies in Documentary Film  Volume 13, 2019 - Issue 2

ABSTRACT

What is the capacity of documentary makers to address specific moments in industrial relations and map them through filmic representations? This paper discusses in depth a labour documentary from Tom Zubrycki, an Australian filmmaker nationally awarded in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the form. Friends and Enemies is unique in documenting union struggle as it deals with a defeat but a defeat that is constructed by the filmmaker as a moment when the class not only suffers but also learns as a class. The film moves from the individual worker engaged in an industrial relations struggle to the collective of workers co-operating to forge a combined strength. Zubrycki demonstrates a genuine respect for the emancipatory wishes of those he films. The film remains especially relevant with the increasing ‘anti-Union astigmatism of mainstream media’ (Coyle, R., and L. Milner. 2007. “Showing Some Fight: Kemira's Challenge to Industrial Relations.” Metro Magazine 153, 178–183.). Zubrycki fosters a capacity to bring an audience to an encounter with the working class; an encounter that has, as a class, the potential for ongoing agency, for bearing testimony to the onward march of capital in the fast-changing landscape of industrial relations. Zubrycki leaves us with the emancipatory pulse still beating.