Joris Ivens' Philips-Radio is a kaleidoscope of motion, geometric patterns, minutia, and machinery. Much like Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera (1929), Ivens channels a pure love of imagery and cinematic technique to create an experience that is singularly filmic. Channeling back and forth between the beleaguered human factory workers and their apparently autonomous machinery, Philips-Radio creates a universe that is simultaneously densely populated, thoroughly human and metallically sterile, bereft of thought and emotions. Ivens' use of sound leads to some curious moments such as a 4th wall-breaking gag where a factory worker replaces a record revealed to be the film's soundtrack mid-song. This suggests a kind of playfulness almost entirely absent from other, more rigorous experiments with "pure" cinema.
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