Hauke Wendler’s Monobloc is an alluring documentary about the world’s most popular single-piece plastic chair. Though originally marketed in the 1970s under romanticized notions as upper-middle-class furniture, the cheap construction results in both fragility and vulnerability to the ravages of time, overuse, and exposure to the elements. This has led to unfavorable perceptions of the chair within the very communities they were pandered to.
As a result, many monoblocs are churned out and many find themselves either heaped in rubbish piles, forever forgotten and broken, or ground down in recycling facilities to be remade and thrust back into the gristmill of socio-cultural economics. Make no mistake when viewing this documentary though. Monobloc is not about the mass-produced and ravenously devoured chairs; it is about us and the correlation we share with them.
Amidst masterful cinematography, skilled editing, titillating musical score, and poignant narration Monobloc is a professional high-quality film that evaporates an otherwise seemingly tedious concept. The film transports viewers across the world to Germany, India, Africa, America, Italy, and France as it follows the progress and existential meaning underpinning this prosaic product of polypropylene polymers. Serene aerial shots of natural landscapes and cityscapes at sunset contrast the many congested and narrow shots of life on the ground highlighting the frantic activities of people which both beckons and welcomes viewers to Modernity.
The first twenty-seven minutes of the film focuses on the chair’s mass production in Italy and the family who produces it followed by the chair’s inclusion at the Vitra Design Museum in Germany as well as a collage of German interviewees offering their negative opinions of the monobloc. Though full to the brim with establishing and relevant information, it lags. However, that lag vanishes when the film fades to Uganda and a family living in abject poverty whose matriarch suffers from near-total paralysis of her legs.
Thanks to the efforts of the Father’s Heart Mobility Ministry, headed by Francis Mugwanya, and the Free Wheelchair Mission founded by Don Schoendorfer, it turns out that the cheap chair of the modern world bears profound meaning to those deeply in need. From this point on, the contrasting elements and eye-opening testimonials and visuals inundate the film leading viewers to question the worth of a seemingly worthless chair.
Therein lies the strength and genius of Monobloc. While a cursory glance may lead viewers into perceiving this as a mundane film about a relatively useless plastic chair, it in fact exists as a quintessential consideration of the world’s most prolific social class, the 99%. Like the monobloc, we exist in large quantities throughout the world. Equally, we mass produce by numerous factors, given only as much value as our contributions to the socio-economic and political beast popularly warrant. Further, many of us are likened to useless decorations consuming space and only as valuable as we can hold up under strain and weathering. Break or buckle and we are likewise discarded save by those precious few who love and adore us. We are otherwise consigned to the rubbish of the world.
For those who have the strength, fortitude, and will, we are recycled and find ourselves by need or desperation remade from our broken pieces and put back into circulation. Is this not the socio-cultural mantra after all? To champion and promote the effort and endurance, no matter who or what sits on us, to consume or produce without end, remaining steadfast in doing so despite adverse weathering? Then, and only then, are we granted value and reward and the promise of ease.
Monobloc is a film that highlights this allusion between Man and cheap chair and the need for true champions like Mugwanya, Schoendorfer, and Wendler. More, the film subtly evinces that awareness and regurgitation of the issue alone are insufficient. What good is belief if the right action does not back it up? What good is the right action when it is not supported by belief?
Mugwanya’s service to his community, Schoendorfer’s efforts to leverage his expertise, and Wendler’s poignant spreading of the message via Monobloc help to remind us that we, and especially the most desperate of us, possess real value and worth even when it is popularly overlooked. That value and worth lies not in our mass production or even our ability to feed the economic and political beast but in our compassion and willingness to support one another. Wendler ends Monobloc with this statement: “…what matters is not the chair. It’s that you’re sitting down.”
Monobloc is appropriate for ages 17+ due primarily to a brief, static, scene presenting full-frontal nudity of a prisoner being tortured. This appropriateness for a public screening may depend on the venue, parental opinion, and sensitivity of the intended audience. As a high-quality professional documentary, Monobloc has great value to students and instructors of filmmaking due to its skillful unfolding of theme, editing, plot devices, and allusion.
As a poignant sociocultural commentary, students and instructors or related interests may also greatly appreciate the educational business documentary. Due to the monobloc existing as the vehicle the socio-economic commentary is seated within – pun intended – the film may not be counted as one of fun or entertainment and may not be suitable for public screenings with that intent.