Spoorwegbouw Zuid-Limburg is much more interesting as a film. The subject is the construction of the “Millions Line” (so called because it cost a million guilders per kilometre to build), the railway line between Schaesberg, Kerkrade, and Simpelveld. Enormous amounts of soil had to be shifted, and the film shows how people did this work, by machine and sheer muscle power. It was a theme which Ivens placed at the centre of many of his films, i.e., that man was able to conquer nature (here, the earth), thanks to his ingenuity (the machines he invented) and the power of labour. Spoorwegbouw Zuid-Limburg contains shots which are typical of the avant-garde film style of the 1920s, with workers filmed in frog perspective, and railway carriages moving diagonally across the frame.

Bert Hogenkamp