Hard Labour (1973)

Directed by

Mike Leigh

Genre

drama film, comedy film, horror film, mystery film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

1h 11m

Rating

6.7 of 10 from 10 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

The story follows a working class family in Salford. The mother struggles with domestic labor and family tensions that build toward a crisis.

bleakslow-burnnaturalisticunsettlingmelancholicgroundedcoldmundane

What happens

"Hard Labour" is the 20th episode of third season of the British BBC anthology TV series Play for Today. The episode was a television play that was originally broadcast on 12 March 1973. "Hard Labour" was written and directed by Mike Leigh, produced by Tony Garnett, and starred Liz Smith in her first major role. The episode is the most clearly drawn in all Leigh's work from the background in Higher and Lower Broughton where he grew up. "Though elements of autobiography are buried in all Leigh's films and plays, only Hard Labour is set in Salford, – the scenes in the Stones' house were shot in a house just two doors along from where the Leighs had lived in Cavendish Road." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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• The Wicker Man (1973)
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• More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.