Good Luck

On opposite sides of the globe, there are two individual mining communities; one in Serbia and one in Suriname. In his elegy about the inhumanity of capitalism, highly influential documentary maker Ben Russell follows workmen in wildly different circumstances, in two countries very far apart. Even so, the two groups share a strikingly similar fate. In Serbia, the soot-covered workers with their furrowed faces work an underground, state-owned mine. The camera follows them on a highly cinematic journey as they leave the fresh air and daylight behind, traveling deeper and deeper towards the centre of the Earth, far from sunshine and life above ground. Here, they live their lives on pittance wages in exchange for hard manual labour, amongst the constant booms and explosions, in eternal night. Each of them looks much older than they are.

In Suriname, the film pays a visit to an illegal mine where the workers search for gold underneath a scorching sun. Even if these workers have fresh air in their lungs, the digging in heavy mud and wet soil makes this an equally demanding workplace as the underground mine in Serbia. There is no apparent systematic distribution of work, but even so there is a strong sense of unity and belonging. In spite of the vast geographical differences, Good Luck weaves together the fates of its subjects into one larger fabric. The result has become a tribute to the strength and fragility of the human body, gorgeously shot on 16mm.