Philips - een onderneming, de samenl...

Philips - een onderneming, de samenl... presents a portrait of the multinational. Vrijman worked almost four years on the film, shot forty hours of footage, and then cut it down to five hours. The film followed from Vrijman's discontent with the leftist clichés of the seventies concerning capitalism and the role of multinationals. With the exception of part three: Philips - het werk in de fabrieken, which shows the daily practice of the monotonous work by thousands of untrained workers, the project was criticised in the left-wing press because Vrijman was said to present too positive a picture of Philips. Vrijman later in an interview: "The Philips film became my voyage of discovery of capitalism. I started to realise that there is nothing diabolical in the system. A lot of injustice, admitted - but that is inherent in any system that allows people to behave in an authoritarian manner". (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)