User Reviews

Director Chick Strand was fascinated with experimental film and did anthropological work in Mexico. Both interests merge in this casual look at workers in a Mexican factory making various fruits and vegetables. The term 'factory' might be a misnomer because there's no mechanization involved, the work is all done by hand and the process involved papier mache.

Strand's technique involves extreme facial close-ups, panning from person to person in the work place, as the women gossip about men and their husbands, with a preoccupation on the topic of sex. They speak in Spanish of course, with English translation offered in sub-titles. The sequences in the picture were filmed over a span of four years from 1981 to 1985, with the project completed the following year, 1986.

Apparently every fourth Thursday of the month, the factory boss treats the staff with a picnic lunch. The group ventures out to a beach area by motor vehicle, and I personally could have done without a full two minutes of the camera stuck on a rear view mirror. During this particular segment, a swim was involved with the women and one presumes either the factory boss or the owner.

There's nothing particularly noteworthy about this effort, even though it runs for a little over twenty minutes. What's documented is of no consequence, except for learning that eventually, the owner ran off with a blond Las Vegas blackjack dealer, his wife took over the business, and became rich as a result. Pretty much rest assured that the gossip about men and sex continued as normal.

By the way, I probably should note that the director, Chick Strand is a woman. Another reviewer here assumed she was a male.

The most notable thing about "Fake Fruit Factory" is certainly the camera work. I really wonder what director Chick Strand was thinking on that one. It's wild, not even remotely precise, we do not w'see who or what he is recording. Only from some of the fruits we see and the people we hear talk we do know that this takes place at a fruit factory. But the dialogs are not interesting at all either. Basically all they talk about is who is pregnant by whom and stuff like that. Small talk from start to finish. But why would we care if we have no clue who is talking to whom and about whom. Yes it is an experimental film, but even for that (and I am certainly not a fan of these), it is very bad. Absolutely not recommended. It does not even have nice Caribbean music to listen to. A waste of slightly over 20 minutes.