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FILM / RECENSIONI Belgio

Recensione: L’acier a coulé dans nos veines

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- Thierry Michel e Christine Pireaux ripercorrono l'epopea dell'industria siderurgica che ha fatto prosperare la Vallonia

Recensione: L’acier a coulé dans nos veines

Questo articolo è disponibile in inglese.

Since the very beginning of their career, Thierry Michel and Christine Pireaux have pondered the role played by the steel industry in Belgium, notably around the city of Liége. As far back as 1980, they were directing Chroniques des saisons d’acier, which followed the fates of four generations working in the steel industry, and their current documentary, L’acier a coulé dans nos veines, which is released in Belgium on 22 January by Le Parc Distribution, sees them extending this reflection and act of remembrance.

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It’s December 2016 and the iconic HF6 blast furnace situated in the city of Seraing, near Liège, is being destroyed by dynamite before the eyes of the local population. This demolition marks the end of an era whose milestones are charted in Michel and Pireaux’s movie. As the film begins, a solemn voice-over reminds us of the industrial, social and symbolic stakes which these iron cathedrals represent, having dominated the land around Liége for so long. Despite the wall which separated the factories from people’s homes, the entire community lived apace with these machines. Mid-way through the 20th century, these blast furnaces employed close to 50,000 men who took turns feeding the beast 24/7. Archive footage captures the spectacular nature of these smouldering rivers of fire, tamed by mankind’s savoir-faire. Several generations of men share their experiences, primarily relating to the particular machinery they worked with, which is a real badge of honour for them, but their tales of trade-union struggles soon take over. By the early ‘80s, the inexorable fall of the steel industry had begun, weighed down by a succession of upheavals and the gradual disappearance of its workforce. For almost forty years, the collective battle exhausted both bodies and minds. But despite the solidarity and steel which ran through their veins with equal force, the fight against globalisation and big business couldn’t be fought on equal footing. In 2013, Arcelor-Mittal put a definitive end to its adventures. The men who give testimony in this film share their elation, their commitment and their pride, but they also reveal the scars left by these struggles: the neglected families, the accidents and the suicides.

Through this decidedly modern classic, which tells the chronological story of the steel industry in Liége and alternates testimonies delivered straight to camera with lengthy archive footage, the filmmakers provide a richly documented sounding board for these witnesses from a bygone era, a time which resulted in an entire region’s industrial glory. L’acier a coulé dans nos veines is a work of memory aimed at anchoring in people’s minds the passion of these men, the inexorability of the march of time and the unexpected fragility of industrial empires, those clay-footed giants eventually caught up by collapse.

L’acier a coulé dans nos veines was produced by Thierry Michel and Christine Pireaux via their own production company Les Films de la Passerelle.

(Tradotto dal francese)

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