Back in the early 20th century, Anyox was a booming mining town in British Columbia, Canada. It is now a deserted wasteland; only two residents remain, their daily routine revolving around cleaning up mountains of black slag or sorting through rusty machine parts left behind in abandoned factories. Hypnotic in its eerie solemnity, Jessica Johnson and Ryan Ermacora’s documentary connects these images of present-day ruins with Anyox’s sordid past, in which labour exploitation was inflicted in the name of commerce.

Digging through official reports, personal diaries and newspaper articles, the film conjures the psychological impact as well as the physical toil endured by the miners, half of whom were immigrants from eastern Europe. Their deplorable working conditions were already apparent in archive newsreels, which show the toxic smog that led to cancerous diseases as well as the destruction of the region’s vegetation. Anyox was a company-owned mining town, so the corporation also had a full monopoly over grocery items and rent. Testimonials from a Croatian miner, read by a voice actor, detail the workers’ efforts to fight against the employers, including their own newspaper and pamphlets to educate other employees on their rights. Such publications, however, were also suppressed by the mining bosses.

Navigating such a huge volume of literature is not an easy task but, for the most part, the film impressively translates these written artefacts into cinema. Past news items, for instance, are presented as if seen on a microfilm viewer; creative though they are, such decisions can affect readability and it is difficult to take in the full scope of a document before the next slide appears. Nevertheless, this remains a uniquely immersive watch, one that successfully conveys the doom of a place devastated by environmental destruction.

• Anyox is on True Story from 20 September.