According to Frank Upward, records are made up with physical entities, logical entities and conceptual constructs. The study starts from the viewpoint of records as conceptual constructs. This study analyzed the documentary film in the area of archiva...
According to Frank Upward, records are made up with physical entities, logical entities and conceptual constructs. The study starts from the viewpoint of records as conceptual constructs. This study analyzed the documentary film in the area of archival contents to enhance the utilization of archives that are emphasized by the electronic record environments. A documentary film is a nonfictional motion picture intended to document some aspect of reality, and provides a factual report on a particular subject using archival footage or interviews with people involved in real events.
Documentary stands out from the other types of archival contents for providing an opinion and a specific message along with the facts in dramatic narrative. However, few studies have been conducted to analyze the documentary film in archival studies. The aim of this study was to examine documentary representation of labor archives and its social implications through documentary <Factory complex> directed by Heung-Soon Im. The research method was based on Seymour Chatman's narrative analysis.
Documentary <Factory complex> portrays lives of the working class women engaged in the industry of the 1970s, all the way through the stories of cashiers, and non-regular workers of today. The film concentrates on the moving testimony of the workers who describe the long hours, unsafe environments, low pay and other physically and emotionally debilitating factors. The form of labor seems to change its appearance but the essence of a bread-and-butter question remains still.
The documentary constructs narrative about female labor by using various archival sources including photography and audiovisual archives collected from individuals, labor union or archive. The documentary also uses poetic, sometimes surreal imagery including scenes set in nature and a young girl standing blindfolded to take an imaginary approach to the traumas of workers.
Documentary <Factory complex> is a powerful contents that brings labor issues to the table in a captivating way that also sparks social movements. This study suggest that documentary is valuable form of archival contents that captures the affective, social, and cultural values of archives through a multi-layered documentation of labor.