"When we show you pictures of napalm victims,
you'll shut your eyes. You'll close your eyes to the pictures. Then you'll close
them to the memory. And then you'll close your eyes to the facts." These words
are spoken at the beginning of an agitprop film that can be viewed as a unique
and remarkable development. Farocki refrains from making any sort of emotional
appeal. His point of departure is the following: "When napalm is burning, it
is too late to extinguish it. You have to fight napalm where it is produced:
in the factories." Resolutely, Farocki names names: the manufacturer is Dow
Chemical, based in Midland, Michigan in the United States. Against backdrops
suggesting the laboratories and offices of this corporation, the film then proceeds
to educate us with an austerity reminiscent of Jean Marie Straub. Farocki's
development unfolds: "(1) A major corporation is like a construction set. It
can be used to put together the whole world. (2) Because of the growing division
of labor, many people no longer recognize the role they play in producing mass
destruction. (3) That which is manufactured in the end is the product of the
workers, students, and engineers." This last thesis is illustrated with an alarmingly
clear image. The same actor, each time at a washroom sink, introduces himself
as a worker, a student, an engineer. As an engineer, carrying a vacuum cleaner
in one hand and a machine gun in the other, he says, "I am an engineer and I
work for an electrical corporation. The workers think we produce vacuum cleaners.
The students think we make machine guns. This vacuum cleaner can be a valuable
weapon. This machine gun can be a useful household appliance. What we produce
is the product of the workers, students, and engineers." (Hans Stempel, Frankfurter
Rundschau, June 14, 1969)