Trabalhar Cansa (Hard Labor) | Review

The familiar ‘I hate my job’ sentiment is taken to a new level in the debut feature from Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra, alumni of both the Cinefondation and Critic’s Week with their short film work. What begins as a tired, sub-Dardennes workshop on the right of the working class takes a turn and mutates, imperceptibly, into a menacing, quasi monster movie – the monster materializing both metaphorically, and literally (as an ominous, Big Bad Wolf-esque figure, no less). Too modest to appeal to genre buffs, Hard Labor works best as an unassuming festival item, whipping out its guns only after it’s dragged the audience into arthouse ennui.

The ‘labor’ of the title refers to the ambitions of protagonist couple Helena and Otavio, who prepare to open a corner grocery story in a recently acquired warehouse. While the earnings from the shop were originally meant to provide them some insurance money, a sturdier financial standing, it ends up as their sole means of putting food on the table after Otavio gets laid off. Through getting to know the couple’s acquaintances, employees, and other family, much emphasis is put on the way that financial matters shape all of their interactions. At it’s most simplistic, it get didactic on all but the most basic downfalls of capitalism, and it gets down and dirty with the sociological repercussions of said ‘ism’, such as – brace yourself – class delineation.

It’s a testament to the weakness of Rojas and Dutra’s setup that the illogical horror element that creeps in at the halfway mark feels refreshingly detached from anything having to do with the plot up to that point. Mysterious, biological fluids are soon joined by significant damages to the interiors of the grocery, and it’s not long before questions about the culprit shift from ‘who’ to ‘what’. Eerie and moody, it’s enough to get the heart racing even though, or because, none of it makes any sense without resorting to hammy symbolism. A stirring final scene – a glimpse of one of Otavio’s job interviews – ultimately suggests the barbaric essence of the current economic climate, where business suits can’t disguise the ‘survival of the fittest’ tactics that people must resort to in order to ‘win’ a job.

Even when realism takes a rain check, the technical aspects stick with its placid, vérité aesthetic. Sound design is, likewise, strictly diegetic, and aptly recorded. The ultimate explosion of style, in the form of cacophonic wailing and extreme close-ups, establishes the aforementioned prudence as either an obstinate preparation, or a missed opportunity. That Dutra and Rojas are so ambivalent about genre fare overtaking their project indicates that they have some fine-tuning to do in the future, but it is difficult to not be excited for the sophomore turn they take; it’s about as unpredictable a path as a debut filmmaker(s) could allude to.

Reviewed on May 13th at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival – Un Certain Regard section

Runtime: 99 Mins

Rating 3 stars