Documentary on Chinese Garment Workers by Wang Bing

August documentary maker Wang Bing (West of the tracks) concludes his Youth trilogy about garment workers with Youth (Homecoming)a work very similar to its predecessors in that it is at once deeply fascinating and deeply soporific. This latest chapter spends less time in the eastern industrial zone of Zhili, Zhejiang province, China, where many of the subjects Wang has followed since Youth (Spring) They spend long hours and much of the year doing their job.

Instead, as the title might suggest, Coming homePresented in competition at Venice, it follows several workers on their journeys home for the new year, to far-flung locales like Yunnan, on the other side of the country, or Anhui, a province neighboring Zhejiang. Viewers who have followed the series from the beginning may feel rewarded by the stunning mountain landscapes and other open spaces here, a welcome respite from all those hours spent watching garments being assembled in gnarled, messy workshops.

Considering that the trilogy was shot over five years, starting in 2014 and ending in March 2019, one might expect the film to be structured in a straight chronological order. Wang, however, bucks this trend and jumps around in time. At one point, we’re watching Shi Wei in 2016, using a jigsaw puzzle to cut out pattern pieces and lying on stacks of them to answer a phone call. Suddenly, we’re years ahead, watching him carry his wife, Liang Tien Liang, on his shoulders up a winding mountain path to get married as their respective villagers follow, laughing and teasing the entire way. Usually seen in ordinary street clothes, the couple are almost unrecognizable in their formal wedding attire.

The clothes speak very quietly about the individuals we follow here, which is perhaps not surprising, given that they spend 15 to 18 hours a day making the stuff, even though it is mostly children's clothing for the domestic Chinese market. Previous films have indirectly explained that these young people are often teenagers when they leave their provincial homes for Zhili, so they can earn enough to support their families back home.

Even though they give most of their wages to their families as breadwinners, their smartest clothes (often designer labels) set them apart as they return to the country mice in their drabs. A young woman trudges through the mud the last few miles home, wearing an eye-catching jacket trimmed with little tufts of lilac fur. But once they’re all home, it’s as if their parents and grandparents have nothing to share but a litany of woes: tales of village disputes over stolen bricks, onerous debts and failing health, the threnody of despair and guilt that anyone who’s ever moved knows all too well.

But life in Zhili is not just about streets paved with gold and endless fun. We must admit that we have seen these young people flirting, laughing, dodging work in SpringBut as the title suggests, things got more difficult in the second film, Hard timeswith civil unrest and employers cutting off their contract workers. Here we see how difficult it can be for new arrivals to settle in Zhili, who spend their first few days trudging from one anonymous workshop to another in search of piecework and a place to stay. One couple is lucky to have a room of their own rather than a dormitory shared with half a dozen others. Wang and his cameramen trudge patiently behind them as they traverse Zhili, or up mountainsides, or into the fields of Anhui where some go to set off firecrackers and partake in local customs. It is pedestrian cinema in the most literal sense.

The long, uninterrupted pace of Wang’s filmmaking somehow casts a spell, and he certainly has a good eye for character. It’s a blessing considering how slow and deliberate the shots are here, watching with just as much intense immersion whether the subjects are sleeping on a train or sewing or preparing food. But overall, the lack of differentiation can be tiring. It’s a shame he stopped filming in 2019, not long before the COVID pandemic completely reshaped that industry, forcing many of the people we meet in the trilogy to return home to their families. It would certainly be fertile ground for documentary drama.