There’s a formal component to this short documentary, which can be seen as a series of sharp and expressive visual portraits. There’s an ethical patina as well. The boardroom camera is both removed and zoomed in, and it probes and uncovers in a way that will turn out to be quite typical of the director. He’s relentless; he’s kind.
Factory is ideologically complex, or multiple. In this it feels very much like a Fred Wiseman film. Communism is the Devil? Here’s your evidence. The world is absurd? A hilarious, horrifying series of administrative missteps/disasters is out and out Objective Correlative. The wheels spin, and we get dug further and further into the mud. Man is born to trouble? Confirmed! The poor manager. The poor mid-managers. The poor human race. We’re all George W. Bush right after the attacks, meaning well and way out of our depth.
The interludes on the factory floor are less ambiguous. You don’t have to be a Communist to revere the Working Man and his craft.