L'ère industrielle, métamorphoses du payage

The remains of old industries can still be found in the countryside around the big French towns. These witnesses of the past are full of poetry today. When they are compared with present industrial landscapes, these bucolic places make us think about beauty and ugliness. "We can't dismiss modernism as ugly", the narrator tells us, "We must learn to look at it." The filmmaker compares views of the Saint-Denis industrial area or harbour scenes with painting.
And he pertinently points out that in the past iron architecture and its opulent elegance shocked the people whereas today we find it charming.