Arsenal     Do.11.02.1999 17.30

A documentary about cigarettes and a cigarette factory, about the women who work at the cigarette machines and a film for Irma Auguste Albertine Wüpper (1907-1989). 11,000 cigarettes per minute, at the end of the shift 4 million cigarettes. The end of the shift is at six in the morning: time to leave the factory. 'It is great when the machines are running, for the company, but also for us.' At six in the morning - back to life, to successful and unsuccessful relationships, daily happiness, daily unhappiness: 'I always had to fight my way in life.'
A film by Alfred Behrens about the cigarette machine operators in the BAT factory Bayreuth, Leslie Kaplan, Jean Paul Belmondo, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and Lucky Strike cigarettes dancing to the classics of popmusic: nothing else.
Alfred Behrens' documentary is a sensitive view from the outside which uses external shots to venture into the deep landscapes of the soul. On the one hand, the film is about women on the assembly line and automatic machines of the 'British-American Tobacco Works Bayreuth', a little social history about women's work in Germany in a well-known industrial company. On the other hand, it is the personal story of a mother's life of suffering, Alfred Behrens' mother. Her narrative is inserted in an asynchronous manner. Working under even tougher conditions, she raised a family while working in the cigarette factory. The factory, as a focal point for the export of smoking and addiction reveals mature women and working lives which are anything but superficial. These women with their silent and controlling movements come across as strong individuals who don't prattle but who reflect life in their words and facial expressions. In a posthumous sense they also portray the cigarette worker Irma Augustine Behrens, nèe Wüpper (1907-1989) who, incidentally, at a very old age quit smoking and only drank decaffeinated coffee. Alfred Behrens - and this is art - conveys a very humane picture of these workers. What they have to do is at least somewhat softened by an emphatic camera which creates a friendly, but never superficial image of human beings. From a long way off the rebellious social criticism of the seventies is discernable in this sympathetic study, but its style is predominantly conciliatory. Gigantic enlarged images of cigarettes are shown from all perspectives and in every constellation, indicating once again the vulcano on which life here in all its ambiguities has to take place. But there is no trace of a know-all manner, and smokers, especially the conjured-up mother, who worked with tobacco, glue and filters, are philantropically examined. The film's perspective is agreeable, and even the most passionate non-smoker will recognize that humanity and female dignity express themselves naturally in this hotbed of nicotine and narcotics. In the film this is done with Brechtian cunning, and it is true even when you know that the filmmaker is fond, very fond of a cigarette or two himself.
Christian Hörburger