Iron Crows
Time Out New York Project: Issue #826, August 25-September 7, 2011
★★★★☆
Dir. Bong-nam Park. 2009. N/R. 93mins. In Bengali, with subtitles. Documentary.
The temperature is blazing. The conditions are rancid. Injury — even death — is likely. Yet the laborers in Bong-nam Park’s wrenching documentary continue to toil in the ship-breaking yards of Chittagong, Bangladesh, where many out-of-commission vessels are sent for dismantling. It’s clear these men and boys have little choice in their line of work: Most are illiterate country-to-city transplants who slave away for a meager salary ($2 a day) that is typically sent home to their families. Any remaining cash goes toward infrequent meals — rice and potatoes are the staple diet — or secondhand clothing — to people who frequently work barefoot, even flip-flops are a luxury — that is sure to be tattered and caked with mud before long.
Park could have easily turned this into a full-on pity party, but he almost entirely avoids that trap. An intrusive, fortunately barely utilized score is the only major misstep, begging crocodile tears instead of clear-eyed compassion. Otherwise, the filmmaking is patient and participatory, getting down in the dirt with the workers (in one case the lens is even soaked by a spray of sludge) and allowing several touchingly distinct personalities to emerge. The heart of Iron Crows is 21-year-old ship-breaker Belal, whom Park captures during the most harrowing scene — he’s nearly crushed by falling debris — and then follows home to the country for the unbearably moving climax: a family reunion as rife with joyousness as it is with heartbreak.—Keith Uhlich
