The men work in the foundry day and night. Finally, they get hungry. They eat lunch while watching the Lumière brothers’ film, Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, in the foundry’s cinema.
Aki Kaurismäki sure knows how to pick a face, stuffing this amuse-bouche with a good half-dozen leathered Finnish mugs. Opening a dialogue with the Lumière brothers’ factory film (one of the first motion pictures ever made), The Foundry may be brief, but it packs quite the meta-cinematic punch.