67
Metascore
10 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 83The A.V. ClubNathan RabinThe A.V. ClubNathan RabinWorkingman's Death's primary pleasures are aesthetic. Glawogger is an extraordinarily elegant filmmaker with a photographer's eye for striking compositions.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterRay BennettThe Hollywood ReporterRay BennettAstonishingly powerful documentary about really, really hard work.
- 80Village VoiceMichael AtkinsonVillage VoiceMichael AtkinsonMichael Glawogger's rather majestic Workingman's Death takes a symphonic structure to document some of the ugliest and most dangerous shit work on the globe.
- 75New York PostV.A. MusettoNew York PostV.A. MusettoThere's scant dialogue in Workingman's Death, but little is needed when majestic camera work by Wolfgang Thaler tells the story so well.
- 75San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoSan Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoThis documentary about men and women performing brutal work tasks for next to no money is full of arresting and eloquent images. It has little dialogue, and little is needed.
- 70The New York TimesStephen HoldenThe New York TimesStephen HoldenIn the film's production notes, Mr. Glawogger wonders, "Is heavy manual labor disappearing or is it just becoming invisible?" In this visually impressive but proudly unscientific hymn to progress, the answers are yes and yes.
- 63New York Daily NewsJami BernardNew York Daily NewsJami BernardIt's a triumph of the human spirit that so many people in deadly jobs are able, nevertheless, to marry and have a few happy moments despite lives of hellish labor. Glawogger's intrepid camera finds both the shame and the grace in it.
- 50Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumChicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumJohn Zorn wrote the percussive score, which is compelling throughout.
- 50Chicago TribuneAllison BenediktChicago TribuneAllison BenediktIt's not exactly a good time at the movies, and even as pure education, it's a rather dull film with very little dialogue, but Glawogger does succeed in capturing the images, sounds and even imagined scents (oh, those burning goats) of contemporary hard labor, work that has become nearly invisible to us cubicle jockeys.