Are the living beings – declined in their human, animal and vegetable form – only resources? Whether it is workers pressurized by an optimized and disembodied production system, animals crammed into intensive farming to feed the population or even plants grown to respond to the dietary dictates of these farmed animals, are we all only materials to maintain in place a system shaped by the obsession with productivity?
By juxtaposing images of these three realities — certainly different at first glance, but whose interrelationship becomes striking — directors Hubert Caron-Guay and Serge-Olivier Rondeau offer, through the documentary Resourcesfertile avenues of reflection, without however falling into an accusatory moralization.
Through diaphanous lighting, the film opens with the image of a factory—that of Olymel, which specializes in animal slaughter—piercing the darkness of the night. The camera then shines on an arid field which will later be greened by the monoculture of corn. Then, in a third shot, the directors’ gaze falls on Mexican asylum seekers who, in a Montreal community organization, are offered to settle in the region to become links in Olymel’s production chain.
Generally approached independently of each other, the themes of the precariousness inherent in the status of asylum seeker, the ethical questioning accompanying the intensive breeding of animals and the harmful impact of monocultures on the environment are treated here in their wholeness.
We don’t know how they exist, what they actually do. The film tries to give visibility to these life forms.
“The effects of performance optimization and standardization not only affect humans, but all sorts of other living things as well,” points out Serge-Olivier Rondeau, who, in addition to his career as a filmmaker, has a academic research course in ethnography. “To see that these things coexist, that they are intertwined, that they have an impact on each other, that’s the main proposition of the film,” he underlines.
Immersive approach
When they decided to unite their visions in 2018, the two documentarians wanted to work on the journey of temporary foreign workers recruited by Olymel. But in the space of a few months, the situation on the ground had changed: Olymel had abandoned this class of workers to recruit asylum seekers who had arrived in Canada after having fled their country of origin.
To immerse themselves in this new reality that was offered to them, Hubert Caron-Guay and Serge-Olivier Rondeau spent three months in a community organization whose mission is to support asylum seekers. By placing their camera on these women and men who want to work and improve their condition at all costs, even if it means occupying a physically and psychologically draining job, the two companions offer the public a window to discover a facet of immigration that is too often excluded. political rhetoric and sweeping generalizations.
The resulting observational documentary, inspired by direct cinema, is anchored in an approach of proximity built over time and aimed at creating intimacy with the protagonists, explains Hubert Caron-Guay. The latter had adopted a similar immersion posture in his previous film Destierros, in which he followed migrants on their way to the United States. “We take what is offered to us, we do not intervene,” he explains.
Give visibility
It is also through this work of observation that the themes of intensive animal husbandry and the territory arose. Asylum seekers were massively offered to go to work in the Olymel slaughterhouses, which have developed a special reception structure for workers who speak only Spanish, points out Serge-Olivier Rondeau. “And the asylum seekers themselves commented on the monocultures of corn”, which they discovered with their fresh eyes as foreigners on Quebec territory, adds the filmmaker.
Camera and sound boom in hand, the documentarians therefore filmed, again over time and in close proximity, this territory woven by the needs of the livestock industry. “It’s part of the chain,” notes Hubert Caron-Guay. And these animals – here pigs and dairy cows – generally unobservable behind the opaque walls of farms. “We don’t know how they exist, what they actually do. The film tries to give visibility to these forms of life,” adds Serge-Olivier Rondeau.
Then, gradually, over the images captured, bridges and links were built “between the different fragilities of asylum seekers, the farming model in Quebec and this territory which has been redesigned according to agriculture. industry”, summarizes Hubert Caron-Guay. A proposal that makes all the originality of Resources and which pushes us to ask ourselves if the quest for yield at all costs can really be a vision of the future for all forms of living beings.
Resourcesa production of Les Films du 3 Mars and Les Films de l’Autre, which has already screened at festivals in Amsterdam, Paris, Vienna and Turin, will be released in Quebec on January 27.