Dear fellow participants of the course,
I want to share a film recommendation with you that touches upon the topic of chronemics that we discussed in today's lecture (monochronic vs. polychronic time): Unrest (2022) by Swiss director Cyril Schäublin. The film follows the young factory worker Josephine who assembles watches in one of the first industrialized watch-making plants in Switzerland in 1877 and her encounters with the labour movement. Her task in the labour process is to assemble the balance wheel (German: Unruh, hence the title of the film) that is the heart of all mechanical watches.
What made me think of the film in the lecture is how it explores different concepts of time - the newly emerging rigid schedules of the factory where authorities and manufacturers impose monochronic time vs. the workers' movement who advocate for a more fluid, collective, and relational approach to time and who prioritize solidarity and communal values over efficiency and division of labour. If you are interested in a fictionalized version of how the Industrial Revolution affected not only society's experience of time and work but also the social relations and political ideals, I can highly recommend the film to you!
Here you can watch the trailer in English:
Best,
Laura