Produced during the Great Depression, the film's theme is intensely socialist, covering the poor living conditions of workers, particularly coal miners, in the Borinage region of Hainaut Province in Belgium.
[3] Misère au Borinage was shot in black and white and is a silent film with intertitles in French and Dutch.
The majority of the film focuses on the plight of Borinage coal miners who have been evicted from their houses and made unemployed following their participation in the strike.
The film makes the argument that strike action could be justified by the poor conditions in which Belgian workers lived.
[5] According to Robert Stallaerts, Storck's work as director of Misère au Borinage justified his status as "father of Walloon cinema" even though he was actually Flemish.