Although most of us have never even given it a thought, the charcoals we use for our backyard barbecues or for melting materials that go into the manufacture of automobiles don't appear out of nowhere. Some of the coal we consume has its origins in the Amazon rainforest, where impoverished migrant workers--many of them children living a thousand miles from their families--chop trees and burn timber in huts to create lightweight, black nuggets of coal for the developed world. Oscar and Emmy winner Nigel Noble's powerful documentary offers a close look at migrant workers who spend their entire lives laboring in the forest, their bodies covered in gray ash, their minds robbed of education. Noble manages to make this portrait of cyclical, endless poverty grimly beautiful, his stunning images leaving an indelible print in one's memory. Unfortunately, the film's structure almost defeats Noble's purpose by constantly returning to the theme of economic victimization, thus robbing us of opportunities to see the workers as more roundly human. Even so, this engrossing portrait is a humanist and political revelation, and given its comparatively low price for an ethnographic documentary, is recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (T. Keogh)
The Charcoal People
(2001) 70 min. VHS: $19.95, DVD: $24.95. Vanguard Cinema (avail. from most distributors). Color cover. Volume 17, Issue 4
The Charcoal People
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