Patrick Mulcahy reviews “On Falling”
On Falling” is riveting, immersive cinema. The devastating first feature film from Portuguese writer-director Laura Carreira, it offers an outsider’s view of the dehumanising treatment of human capital in the UK. Set in an unnamed Scottish city, it follows Aurora (Joana Santos), a young Portuguese woman living in rented accommodation, the sort of house when the living room is converted to a bedroom to maximise income. By day, she works in an out-of-town warehouse as a picker, scanning barcodes and placing items into a basket to complete orders to be shipped to customers. By night, she contemplates the paucity of her kitchen cabinet. Another resident complains of the “ghost” in the house, helping themselves to other’s food. It becomes apparent that Aurora is guilty.
In the film’s opening, Carreira anonymises Aurora, showing workers walking down a narrow corridor, as if entering a vessel. As a large number of workers pass through a security turnstile, the camera does not linger on Aurora. Carreira tells us that this is not an exceptional story. The conspiracy of circumstances, call them market forces or insufficiently regulated industry practice, crushes the individual.
As we see her at work, Aurora is filmed from behind. This causes us to work too, asking ourselves, what is she scanning and placing in her trolley? Each object requires two scans, the first to identify the correct shelf, the second the correct item. The shopping list paints a picture of the customer, who is otherwise remote.
Aurora relies on a lift from another picker to get to work, who in turn needs a contribution towards petrol. “I’ll send the money later,” Aurora replies.
Carreira shows Aurora’s slow disintegration, staring at the Instagram feed on her phone blankly, her only link to family and friends. A new tenant, Kris (Piotr Sikora) arrives at the house – “a man with a van” – bringing self-reliance. He and his social circle bring Aurora out into the world – or at least into a club. Aurora places her head on Kris” shoulder but there’s no prospect of romance or transformation.
The television programme “Golden Chain” is a topic of conversation in the workers” canteen, the title suggesting a far away world of luxury and privilege. Aurora doesn’t watch. A suicide is also discussed. Employees are expected to meet targets. Aurora is called into the supervisor’s office and told she is one of the more efficient pickers. She can take a chocolate from the box. The scene illustrates the faux generous yet cruel and demeaning treatment she endures. She needs a bonus.
Aurora’s financial troubles mount up. During a shower, the electricity cuts off. Kris pays for it to be restored. Then Aurora drops her phone. She needs it urgently and has to pay £99 for a repair that takes time. It is no small amount for an object that she relies upon. Booking leave for work requires an app.
Social realist in execution, the film has one moment of visual poetry: a box tumbling on the spot on a vertical conveyor belt. It moves constantly but goes nowhere, a metaphor for Aurora herself.
Desperation isn’t simply limited to Aurora. She completes an order where the customer has requested various lengths of rope. At risk to herself, Aurora switches one of the lengths of rope for a cookbook, a message to an unknown customer and a sign. Someone is watching, somebody cares.
“I would love a job behind a desk,” laughs one of her colleagues. Aurora applies for a job in social care. Her request for leave is refused. The supervisors are incapable of exercising discretion (“it’s controlled by head office”). Aurora resorts to faking illness to attend. She goes shopping beforehand, ordering a selection of cakes, a sugar addiction indicating the depth of her problem. She visits a department store and is given eyeliner. The professional treatment she receives contrasts with her own anonymous drudgery. The interview itself presents another challenge as Aurora cannot escape an acknowledgement of the emptiness of her existence, her ghostliness. Afterwards, she collapses in a park.
There is a presentation at work and frosted doughnuts on display. Aurora leaves the talk early, taking some doughnuts and heading for the lavatory. She is fragile. There is only one ray of light, a game played on the warehouse floor in which workers push an object to one another in a circle, trying to keep it off the ground, to keep it from falling. Solidarity, promoted through childish activity, may yet save them all in a world where depersonalisation is the norm.
“On Falling” premiered at the 2024 London Film Festival and is due for release in 2025