The Working Class Goes to Heaven (1971) on Netflix
Management holds Lulù Massa's output up as the standard for the factory, and his colleagues resent him for it. Losing a finger at his machine turns him toward the radical workers.
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Trailer
Plot summary
The factory where Lulù Massa works is divided. Unionists want higher pay and shorter hours, while the students outside the gates press the workers to turn against the owners. Lulù, 31, has spent fifteen years on the machines and keeps clear of both sides. Now and then he visits Militina, a former colleague who broke down under the conditions in the factory and is kept in a mental institution, and who speaks of smashing a wall and of militant deeds. When Lulù loses a finger in an accident at his machine, he sides with the radical workers and the students.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Working Class Goes to Heaven (1971)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Director Elio Petri claimed that after a screening, filmmaker Jean-Marie Straub demanded that The Working Class Goes to Heaven be burned; other sources attribute that demand to critic Pio Baldelli.
- The factory scenes were shot in a factory in Novara, Piedmont, that had shut down and been taken over by its former workers, many of whom appear as extras in the film.
