Ceux du fond AKA The Men from down the Mine (René Van de Weert, 1949)

Made in 1949 in the middle f the "Coal Battle", this film in the form of a documentary with prpaganda vertones about the job of miner starts with an artistic prtrayal f a job that has already been portrayed in paint, sculpture, poetry and nvels a myriad times. It is now the turn f the 7th art, film, to pick up the baton in the depiction of this "wonderful and dangerous job" via the realism of celluloid images. 16 minutes long, the film paints a fairly complete picture of the job of miner, from above the ground to wrking down in the mine, and shoows the housing conditions that are better than before thewar, the improvement of the miner's conditions, the opportunities for promotion to moreskilled jobs, research into the prevention of occupaional diseases and miners' spare time during wich they can relax after a hard day'swork. A mixture of images that do not always tally with technical reasons, filmed in mines where firedamp was not a hazard because the means used to provide the lighting in the film industry at the time were not explosion-proof.