La Mano Invisible (The Invisible Hand)
Javi Tasio
This brilliant feature film from Spain provides a rare look at work in today’s society. As it opens, an industrial warehouse has been turned into a stage. Eleven workers from different fields have been hired to perform their normal tasks in front of an audience that comes to see “The Work Show.” At first, they are proud to have their skills recognized, but drama ensues when the faceless producers of the show start demanding drastic increases in productivity.
Synopsis: An industrial warehouse is turned into a stage. Eleven ordinary professionals are hired to do their work in front of an audience with apparent normality: a mason, a butcher, a seamstress, a teleoperator, a waiter, a mechanic, a computer operator, and a cleaner. Meanwhile, from the darkness of the auditorium, dozens of visitors observe the ‘wonderful’ work show. Work of art, reality show, macabre experiment: they do not know what they’ve got into, nor who is the hand that moves the strings in that wicked theater.
With impeccable performances, and a surprising ending, the adaptation of the novel by Isaac Rosa is an astonishing parable of work in contemporary society.
