argos tv75: Angel Vergara, La sortie des usines VW (1987)

argos tv brings new and old works from the soɓɹɐ collection to your personal screen. Each first Thursday of the month, a new film runs on our website during the whole month, entirely free. The film is also shown on the window display at Koopliedenstraat 62 Rue des Commerçants (next to the rile* entrance). Looking for more films? Feel free to browse our entire catalogue in our library.
We are marking International Workers' Day, or May Day with an online screening of La sortie des usines VW (1987) by Angel Vergara.
At the Volkswagen factory, Vergara shot hours of material of workers leaving the building. He filmed most of the images indirectly: the artist had set up his camera in front of shop-windows and other windows, which causes a reflection or a multi-layered image. With its purpose and its title, the work echoes ’La sortie des usines Lumière (1895). Different from the early film of Louis Lumière, is the fact that ’La sortie des usines VW’ is not filmed from a fixed camera angle. Vergara focuses strongly - just like in other works of the series - on the montage that again is maintaining up top speed. The flashing montage shows how employees and workers are going to their cars, tram or bus by foot, a briefcases or a backpack in their hands. The traffic jams caused by this evacuation, cut through the work, with for example shots of construction workers working at the construction site, billboards in the neighbourhood and the surrounding urban landscape.