Film
Machines
- Very dark
Machines is a 71-minute documentary that immerses you inside a vast textile factory in Gujarat, India. It's a sensory experience—corridors, machinery, bodies moving through dehumanizing routines—less interested in explaining than in making you feel the weight of industrial labour. Hypnotic and unsettling, it's for viewers ready to sit with discomfort rather than seek answers.
If you liked this
City 402016
Another documentary that uses industrial/institutional spaces as a character. It observes Soviet-era secrecy with the same detached eye for visual rhythm and human scale against enormous systems.
But It's deliberately obscure about its own subject. That opacity will feel like withholding to some viewers.
Manufactured Landscapes2006
Jennifer Baichwal's film moves through Chinese factories with a similar commitment to letting scale and repetition speak. Visually stunning, it captures the sublime horror of industrial production.
But At times it can feel more like an art installation than a documentary. The pacing is meditative to the point of drift.
Salesman1969
A Maysles brothers masterpiece about door-to-door Bible salesmen that captures the grinding repetition and dignity within mundane work. It's a template for this kind of observational cinema.
But Released over 50 years ago and shot in grainy black-and-white. The pacing assumes patience that modern viewers sometimes lack.
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The wildcard
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Come and See1985
Both use industrial/institutional spaces and rhythmic repetition to convey dehumanisation. Both refuse to comfort or explain. Both trust images over narration.
Elem Klimov's Belarusian war film uses similar visual language—corridors, scale, the body moving through hostile structures—to render psychological destruction. It's similarly unsparing and immersive, though the subject is warfare rather than labour.
But It's one of the most distressing films ever made. Not a casual evening; this demands emotional preparation.
More like this (6)
Night and Fog1956
Alain Resnais's 30-minute meditation on industrial atrocity uses similar visual language—corridors, structures, the machinery of dehumanization—but in service of historical reckoning.
But It's a Holocaust documentary. The subject matter is incomparably grave, and some will find any comparison uncomfortable.
La Jetée1962
Entirely made from still photographs with a hypnotic soundtrack, it shares Machines' commitment to rhythm over plot and sensory experience over explanation. Deeply hypnotic.
But It's science fiction, not documentary, and utterly abstract. If you want grounding in reality, this will frustrate you.
Koyaanisqatsi1983
Philip Glass and Godfrey Reggio's wordless essay on industrialisation and excess uses time-lapse and montage to create a visual symphony of human systems. Visually dazzling.
But It's essentially a 87-minute music video with no dialogue or conventional narrative. Some find it gorgeous; others find it exhaustingly pretentious.
The Social Dilemma2020
A more accessible documentary about systems of control and dehumanisation, but it examines tech rather than factories. It shares the concern with how structures shape human behaviour.
But It's more polemical and less poetic than Machines. Some regard it as reductive and occasionally didactic.
The Vow2012
Both examine systems and repetition as subject matter. Both reveal the hidden labour behind what we see. Both are more interested in form than message.
A rare experimental animated documentary by Opus Ahlstrom that deconstructs the machinery of animation itself—frames, cells, the factory-like process of making images. Hypnotic and visually gorgeous.
But It's avant-garde animation with no traditional plot. If you're not already curious about experimental cinema, this will feel wilfully obscure.
The Secret of Kells2009
Both are profound meditations on labour and human hands at work. Machines shows labour stripped of meaning; Kells shows labour as sacred act. Opposite poles of the same obsession.
Cartoon Saloon's animated Irish film is as visually intricate as Machines is rigorously minimal—but it shares an obsessive attention to detail, craft, and the transformation of labour into art.
But It's a fairy-tale adventure for family audiences. If you're seeking the grimness of Machines, this will feel tonal whiplash.
People
Directing
- Rahul JainDirector
Production
- Iikka VehkalahtiAssociate Producer
- Rahul JainProducer
- Thanassis KarathanosProducer