The Quotidian Labor of Political Movements
Direct Action demonstrates that fiery protests and violent police encounters are just one facet of the real work of activism
If any idea pervades the documentary section at the 62nd New York Film Festival, it is that activism and organizing is an everyday practice. Films such as Union (2024), about the Amazon Labor Union’s fight to organize one of the massive corporation’s distribution centers, and No Other Land (2024), documenting the struggle of Palestinians in the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta area against forced displacement by the Israeli military and settler forces, showcase the long-term battles activists have taken on in each respective struggle. Both films are more conventionally constructed, historicizing their subjects and focusing on strategy, action, and arguments within each movement.
But as another film at NYFF makes clear by contrast, this method of nonfiction filmmaking ends up creating something of a highlight reel of their subjects. According to Direct Action (2024), directed by Ben Russell and Guillaume Cailleau, sexy moments like fiery protests and violent police encounters are just one facet of the real work of activism and political struggle. In following the ZAD de Notre-Dame-des-Landes, an environmental activist collective that has been blockading plans to build an airport in western France since 2012, the filmmakers show that the work of political movements is much more quotidian — perhaps even boring — than one might expect.
Adopting the fly-on-the-wall direct cinema method favored by Frederick Wiseman, Russell and Cailleau spend nearly three hours (including a 5-minute intermission) showing us the ZAD’s daily goings-on. In Direct Action, the Zadists bake bread, take care of animals, plant seeds and harvest beans, cut wood to be used during protest actions, screenprint posters, discuss plans for future actions, and more. Nearly every shot continues unbroken for several minutes, forcing us to focus on the hypnotic nature of mundane labor. Occasionally, fun goings-on break up the monotony: a child’s birthday party, an anarchist rock concert, an Arab-language rapper in the recording studio.
Direct Action is certainly not the most exciting or enjoyable film to watch, and it’s not meant to be. The aim of such a film, like Wiseman’s glimpses into various societal institutions such as city governments, hospitals, and even a fine dining restaurant, is to give us a sense of how things work at the ZAD, and what life there is really like. Eventually, we are rewarded for all that time spent watching dull chores. At the end of the film, we witness a protest against a planned reservoir in the village of Sainte-Soline. Trucks emblazoned with signs — “Stop Water Privatization,” “No retirement without a planet” — roll down a highway like tanks into battle. Protesters in masks and hiking gear — thousands of them — clamber over irrigation ditches. Smoke grenades thrown by riot cops explode, and the entire field is obscured in white smoke.
Withholding all this mayhem until the very end renders these scenes all the more impactful, demonstrating the full force of mass, collective activism. That momentum culminates in the final scene, in which the Zadists explain their vision for resistance against the oppressive structures of capitalism to a group of reporters. One could look at a plot description of Direct Action and imagine the work of the ZAD to be frivolous, even pointless, in light of other issues. A bunch of French anarchists squatting in a field doesn’t seem important when compared to the loss of life in Palestine, for instance. Yet the lessons the film imparts are universal and vital. As the climate crisis continues to metastasize, we may all eventually have to do the same work.
Direct Action (2024) screens at the New York Film Festival (144 W 65th Street) on October 7 and 8.
