24 City
Dir: Zhang Ke Jia
Rating 4.0
Cinema Guild
112 Minutes
Banners hang in the empty auditorium. They read, "Always follow the path of development correctly. Work loyally for our army." The former head of the Chinese city of Chengdu's Factory 420 stands, facing the stage, looking towards the camera. The production of aviation equipment was the factory's purpose, but it's tough not to think about a less literal "path of development" in this case. 24 City is a film about a factory's closure and demolition, the toll this takes on its workers' lives, and the gradual construction of a new high-end residential neighborhood, 24 City, in its place. What path of development has been taken, now?
The film blends documentary and fiction in a disorienting way. It doesn't incorporate documentary technique into an outwardly fictional film; it gradually weaves in an increasing number of fictional elements into what is outwardly a documentary. Over the course of its runtime, interviews in 24 City feel more performed, rather than spoken; a greater number of moments feel more elaborately visually orchestrated; jib and dolly shots start increasing in frequency. This buildup of artifice and reality colliding finally culminates in an odd moment where the famous Joan Chen, playing a factory worker conducting an interview for the film, talks about how she got her nickname from a Joan Chen film.
There is a long series of difficult interviews during the front half of the film, stories of families separated for 14 year periods by factory relocations, mothers being dragged away by their ferry groups, forced to abandon their search for their lost children in order to not miss their boat. A factory worker speaking about her layoff years earlier recounts her conversations with her boss: "Did I ever not do my best? Did I ever fail at my job? Did I ever not perform excellently?" The individual acts for the masses, but the masses fail the individual. The increasing number of fictional elements in the film's later moments begins to color our perceptions of the rest of it; which interviews were staged and which were not? Whether some of the stories are fake is irrelevant, the very idea of Factory 420 itself could be fictionalized, an amalgamation of various real factory workers' stories and actor's embellishments - a fiction based on truth.
"Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth."
- W. B. Yeats
These title cards appear right before the camera fades up onto an image of a forest, panning upward over the trees. Higher up it goes, past the edge of the wall the image was painted on, revealing a construction yard beyond it. What truth is there to whither into when the fiction of images is all we have to live with? The construction yard is either a sign of hope or a signal of an ending for you, just like it's either a statement or an ironic joke to you that the poem above is titled "The Coming of Wisdom with Time."
The final interview is with a girl born into the factory society, but who actively chose to never be a part of it, running away from home as a teenager. She works as a buyer for rich people, traveling to Hong Kong to buy the stylish clothes they don't have the time or will to purchase for themselves. She hopes to manage a restaurant her friend is opening in 24 City. Her goal is to make "lots and lots" of money. She wants to buy her parents an apartment. The camera pans away in the direction of her gaze, and we see Chengdu from above for the first time. It's enormous, and stretches out as far as the camera can see. With the death of one factory comes the birth of another.
by Andrei Alupului