Harlan County War is excellent fiction about a labor conflict, although based on true events. The fight of the coal miners in Harlan County has become illustrious, among others due to the documentary Harlan County USA by director Kopple. We live in the mid-seventies, and the coal miners want to organize. The corporation does not accept the union as a personnel representative and refuses to sign a contract. The miners live in company houses under primitive conditions, and the facilities such as the local grocery are company property. A union organizer of the UMW is sent to the village, settles in a motel and tries to mobilize the people. THowever, the main character is Ruby, a miners wife, who more or less against her will gets drawn into the strike activities. Her father is also a miner, and still remembers the bloody conflicts from decades earlier. He is a convinced union man, just as Ruby's husband. The father suffers from the disease black lung, caused by the uncontrolled coal dust in the mines. Eventually he dies from suffocation. The strikers form a picket line, and the corporation starts to hire scabs. Both sides soon develop an aggressive and violent attitude. Shots are fired at the picketers, the houses of scabs are besmeared and cars are blown up. The local police is present, but barely controls the developments. These scenes are based on true events, but apparently dramatized and adjusted to the story line. The climax is probably a stand out, when large groups of picketers and scabs, both heavily armed, confront each other. A shootout is only just averted. Finally after a year or so the miners win their contract. It is sometimes unclear whether the violence is authentic, or a setup of the miners in order to lure the media. Anyway, in case of doubt the film takes sides with the miners, which adds to its emotional credibility. Subjectivity seems justified in our modern society, where the message in the media is dominated by the advertisers (which are not you and me). A further quality of the film is the insight into the organizing committee, which appears to be run by a tiny group of activists (mainly the organizer and Ruby), even though their support group is much larger. The acting of Hunter is fresh and convincing. I highly recommend Harlan County War. Having said that, there is a wide variety of competing films. Let me just name Germinal (France), Subterra (Chile), Salt of the Earth (the primogenitor of this type of films, and banned during the age of the McCarthy terror, when American democracy suffered violent blows. Salt of the Earth is still rarely mentioned, and apparently its reputation has not yet been completely rehabilitated. It would be good Americanism to have a look), Matewan, and Harlan County USA. You might also be interested in the film Sonnensucher, about uranium miners. It belongs to the wave of Aufbau (build up) films, that appeared in the Soviet zone of Germany, and shows the problems resulting from nationalization - including sabotage.

I'll keep this short. Martin Ritt's "Norma Rae" was a more original, less stereotyped study of exploited Appalachian workers and their tribulations, and so was Barbara Koppel's documentary of this confrontation between union organizers and the evil company they labor for.The acting isn't bad. Holly Hunter is good, as she usually is, and Stellan Skarsgard is fine as always. He's a remarkably relaxed performer, whether the role calls for villainy ("Ronin") or sympathetic understanding, as in "Good Will Hunting". Hunter's Southern accent may sound overdrawn to some, but thirty-five years ago I imagine it fit the template well enough.It's the story that sags. There are good people and evil people and none of them are particularly complex. That's more or less how Koppel's documentary rolled along too, but it's nevertheless not how life on the ground is structured. The conventions followed here are those of a soap opera, except that instead of a deceitful and vicious husband, we have a nefarious corporation.It doesn't matter that the film was shot in Canada. That has little to do with its quality. I only wish the script had given the audience a bit more to chew on, just a little food for thought, a ham hock or two, rather than Pablum.

I have spent my entire life in Harlan County, Kentucky. Growing up, working and now raising my own children here. To those of you who believe this movie has anything real to teach you about my home, I can tell you it has only a minimal similarity to reality. It is based on a nearly thirty-year-old Oscar-winning film, Harlan County USA, which for a documentary about the 1970s-era strike at Eastover Mining Company was one of the most complete works of fiction ever created. This admittedly fictionalized version of that original fiction doesn't look like Harlan County, sound like Harlan County, or even remotely evoke Harlan County, which at least the documentary did, even though most of its details were way out of whack. Although stereotypes abound, I can recommend this movie as a competent piece of fiction and a satisfying, though somewhat overwrought, drama. In short, typical made-for-TV fodder. But don't for one minute think it resembles real people or real life in Harlan County, Kentucky in any useful way. That story doesn't exist yet in the minds of producers anywhere. Appalachia and the entertainment industry have yet to understand one another.

Harlan County Kentucky is a beautiful place not Vancouver in Canada were the movie was filmed.The people of Harlan County Kentucky do not talk like Granny of the Beverly Hillbillies as Holly Hunter did.Why were the people of Harlan County Kentucky left out of this movie.The coalminers strike in Harlan County Kentucky was alot more than what this movie portrayed.I was embarrassed for the maker of this movie.