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Clip description
A montage of brick houses and apartments gives way to an intertitle which introduces the contrasting living conditions of workers who live ‘across the river’. A wide shot of an industrial cityscape cuts to a shot of a street, which then cuts to a shot of a small terrace-style house. A man slowly enters. This is followed by a sequence of housing styles including tin-roofed slums, terraced houses squashed together, and dingy apartment blocks.
Curator’s notes
The sequence of three shots which introduce the living conditions ‘across the river’ (the Yarra) work to pull the viewer into the lives of the workers. The industrial cityscape sets the scene and the next shot of a typical street ‘zooms in’ a little closer. The third shot, of a house front and its occupant entering, brings us one-on-one with the ‘workers’ in an attempt to create empathy. The intertitles throughout this documentary are strongly worded and project a clear position on the social justice issues of living conditions and workers’ rights.
