Workers

Lidia is a live in maid in the house of a very wealthy elderly woman in Tijuana. Rafael has worked as a cleaner at the same large plant for thirty years and his retirement is close. He buys a new pair of shoes for it, but an error in his papers means his pension will not be paid. When Lidia’s employer dies it turns out the whole estate goes to the woman’s dog. Both of them see that the places they gave their working lives to have left them nothing. So each sets out, in their own way, to take what they are owed. The film tells its anger not by shouting but with a quiet, steady look. The two stories never touch, and show the same matter from two places. José Luis Valle’s hundred and twenty minute film, a joint German and Mexican production, was completed in 2013.