Portuguese filmmaker Laura Carreira writes and directs this painfully true-to-life account of an overworked and exploited package ‘picker’ for an Amazon-like mega corporation, the result of which is an impressive, if not overly sombre, portrait of the gig economy era.
Under the harsh lights of the ‘fulfilment centre’, the sardonically named Scottish warehouse where workers soundlessly pack and ship items with Orwellian efficiency, Portuguese immigrant Aurora (Joana Santos) diligently goes about her work, all the while slowly suffocating due to low pay and zero job security.
Outside of work, her life is the kind of monotonous existence that breeds very little happiness, or sense of self. Her mental and physical time is spent in the service of a faceless, monolithic company – every moment is a bit of a slog for her, and by extension the viewer.
Produced by Sixteen Films, the company co-founded by director Ken Loach, the film is reminiscent of his stories. Everything is real world and true to life, though his proclivity to pair hard-hitting subject matter with moments of levity is somewhat missing.
Instead, there is precious little light seen in Aurora’s life. She’s essentially sleepwalking through life to make ends meet, napping off the fatigue from work in her cramped flat share, and doing all the dull jobs in between to make life bearable – in a way, she’s not really living at all.
Considering this is her first feature, Carreira renders Aurora’s day to day with real control. No moment is wasted and every positive emotion is withheld – we’re never made to feel anything close to buoyant, which produces a challenging watch at times. And I found my attention wandering as a result — there’s only so much misery you can take before it all gets a little bombarding — but the skilful, dialogue-light screenplay always brought me back.
It’s built on solid foundations, recycling many of the same moments to paint and repaint our impression of this harsh life, and I always felt Carreira was in control of the story she was telling. I was reminded of Perfect Days, the Wim Wenders film about a merry toilet cleaner adoring his ho-hum job in Japan, though that film spoke to the joy of repetition rather than its trials.
Nevertheless, I rooted for Aurora. It came as a sort of snowball effect of emotions; at first I wanted her to rage against her circumstances in a typical Hollywood way, but as I discovered her subtle, quiet resilience and tolerance of her situation, I came to really admire and hope for the character.
Many times Aurora is pulled in directions that make her feel smaller: on a precious escape to a club, she spends the night taking care of a badly drunk girl; there’s an excruciating moment when, after being crowned that month’s most effective package picker, she’s given the choice of a chocolate bar as a reward, which was agonising to witness. To live in such a demeaning environment is depicted so well, I could scream!
Despite all the gloom, I always found myself wanting to see Aurora succeed. Beyond the uncomfortable tone, there’s an accomplished bit of emotional trickery going on. To have me feeling frustrated, angry, a little impatient and then eventually hopeful for the character is akin to sleight of hand, a device Carreira deftly pulls off. But to reach that apex of hope, there’s a fair amount of joyless moments to trudge through. So, bring snacks.
— On Falling premieres at the Glasgow Film Festival February 28 and March 1.
