Made in Bangladesh

Made in Bangladesh (2019) is a Bengali film co-written and directed by Rubaiyat Hossain.

This movie is an homage to Made in Dagenham (2010). Rikita Nandini Shimu portrays Shimu Akhtar, which was the Sally Hawkins role in the English film. However badly the workers were treated in Dagenham, the workers in Bangladesh are treated worse.

For example, they are forced to work into the night to complete an order, and then told they have to stay at the plant and sleep on the floor. The final blow is that management turns off the large electric fan that makes the heat bearable.

The best option open to the women is to form a union, but that turns out to be extraordinarily difficult. Everyone is against them--some of their colleagues, their husbands, management of course, and, as we learn, the ministry of labor.

How the women react to this mountain of opposition is the plot of the movie.

Rikita Nandini Shimu is a skilled professional actor. She inhabits the role and makes it her own. It was a pleasure to watch her act.

The film is based on a real-life labor organizer, who helped in making the film. What we see is drama, not documentary, but it's based on reality.

This movie worked well enough on the small screen. We watched it at Rochester's Dryden Theatre as part of the outstanding Rochester Labor Film Series.

Made in Bangladesh has a respectable IMDb rating of 7.1. I thought it was much better than that, and rated it 9.

"Made in Bangladesh", the title, refers to the tag on our clothes that tell us where that piece of clothing was made. Fast fashion sells us cheap clothes because they are able to exploit the labor of poor women from third world countries, whose pay is so low that even the cheap prices of these clothes seem like their product is being marked up a lot to them.

Of course this movie speaks to the experiences of the garments factory workers in Bangladesh only, but I imagine the experiences of the workers in other countries who make clothes for fast fashion can't be much different. And the movie does an excellent job of showing the nuanced complexities of the scenario.

Yes, the factories are exploiting these women, but these jobs provide them with freedom for the first time in their lives. Despite this freedom, there is still so much limitations they face due to society.

The plot of the movie revolves around factory workers trying to get unionized. They face many obstacles including their factory management finding out, their families objecting, and the government officials being uncooperative. But the movie tackles so many more issues such as the problem of unemployment among men and how they have a hard time relying on their wife as primary earner, how essential it is for women to get married in order to be safe, but how at the same time their husbands can hold them back, and also just the conditions this class of workers are forced to live in.

I was thinking that this movie might be awkward because after all, it is about how to form a union, so perhaps it would feel like an instructional video. But it really didn't. I was surprised by how well it flowed, how well it built up the stakes, and how invested I could becomes in those stakes.

I think it is very important to watch for us to know what it takes for us to get easy access to our clothes. The solution for these women is not for us to boycott fast fashion, but rather to pressure corporations to commission their clothes only from factories that are compliant and treat their workers with dignity.

The social drama takes the viewer to the factories where their clothes are made. The storytelling and cinemography reminded me of older European films from the 40's and 50's that dealt with the same issues: workers rights, women's role in a patriarchal society and a corrupt system. Though much of these ills have been improved in the privileged west, they are not gone from the world, far from it. The story is engaging and setting is interesting and colorful. Though the film feels at times it has been made for social studies class, it is nevertheless emotional and capturing story that does great work in bringing awareness on the issues that it portrays.

I was casually browsing through Amazon Prime and nonchalantly zeroed in on this film. From the first frame to the very last, I was hooked. The subject matter is super relevant. The acting of all the characters achieve the naturalism of a documentary. No frills, no make-up, no vulgarity, not apologetic. It's cruelly honest. It addresses a plethora of topics of utmost concern: workplace exploitation, gender bias, right to life and freedom, patriarchy, women empowerment. All of it without being preachy for a moment.

This is one of those films that never receives what it deserves. I hope it breaks away from that tyranny and achieves the bright star that it so deservingly need. Go watch it. Don't miss it for your life.