Mémoires de la mine: la mémoire

The exploitation of coal mines was one of the greatest economic achievements of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. But as other energy sources became increasingly important, the mining industry went downhill, resulting in the eventual shutdown of most mines. The mining industry in the north of France fills some of the most important pages in the social history of the country. Now that most mines have closed down, the stories of the former miners are the only possibility left to revive the past. This also turns the mine into a symbol of the subconscious from where the memories are dug up. "My memory is that of a snatch of accordion music and of a language which is not ours", one of the Polish immigrants says who used to be employed in the mines. The film presents the history of all those men who spent years in the dark and recounts how their political awareness grew through the influence of the war and the bad economic situation in the thirties.