Simone Weil
Writing
Biography
Simone Weil (1909–1943) philosophized on thresholds and across borders. Her persistent desire for truth and justice led her to both elite academies and factory floors, political praxis and spiritual solitude. At different times she was an activist, a pacifist, a militant, a mystic, and an exile; but throughout, in her inquiry into reality and orientation to the good, she remained a philosopher.
Known For
This is the diary which the French philosopher Simone Weil kept when, as a twenty-five-year-old, she took a one-year sabbatical from school and her studies and worked in a Parisian factory from December 4, 1934 until August 1935, running the presses at the Alsthom electric company. This experience formed the basis for her book La condition ouvrière. The written chronicle of her days is visually accompanied by a continuous flow of dark rooms and the urban landscape of Île Seguin (suburbs south of Paris), paying particular attention to construction sites and factories.
Je suis Simone (La condition ouvrière)
The above narrative, by Simone Weil, the French philosopher and mystic, was written into her last notebook. The places filmed show where she lived and worked during that time. It was 1942-43.
Simone Weil Avenue
Today, despite decades of technological and scientific progress, the future inspires more fear than hope. What strength can we draw on to remedy this? Do we need to re-read Simone Weil, of whom Camus said: “she is the only great spirit of our time”. This documentary retraces the astonishing life of this young middle-class girl of Jewish origin, driven by a thirst for the absolute, who started out in philosophy to go towards God. Simone Weil left no field of thought untouched; she dealt with everything in search of the only truth. As she herself said, “you have to write eternal things to be sure they're topical”. What if we were to talk, with her, about the spirituality of work?