‘Youth (Hard Times)’ Review: Wang Bing’s Labor Documentary Sequel Disorients With a Purpose (2024)

Just when it seems like Wang Bing‘s textile documentaries might run out of observations, the Chinese filmmaker’s “Youth (Hard Times)” — the second in his planned trilogy — presents the passage of time in unforeseen ways. His narrative, about young workers’ growing frustrations in Zhili (a district of Huzhou City), is built obliquely but precisely, covering a variety of human subjects whose lives don’t often overlap, but who are bound by common circ*mstances. At nearly four hours in length, it surpasses even its gargantuan predecessor “Youth (Spring),” but it also uses that film as a platform for deeper exploration.

Garment labor in the wake of China’s textile boom has long been a fixation for Wang, whose 2016 doc “Bitter Money” follows migrant worker struggles, and whose subsequent museum installation “15 Hours” unfolds in a clothing factory over a single, 900-minute take. “Youth (Spring),” which kicked off his new trilogy at Cannes last year, is closer in style and substance to the latter, with its insistence on making viewers feel the lengthy passage of time. “Youth (Hard Times),” which premiered in competition at Locarno, feels more pointed and purposeful, both in its scope and its techniques.

Both films (as well as Wang’s pending third entry, “Youth (Homecoming),” which will debut at Venice next month) were carved from the same stockpile of thousands of hours of footage. Wang shot all three films between 2014 and 2019 while embedding himself among the workers in their rundown dormitories along the ironically named Happiness Road — home to over 18,000 such privately-owned factories. (China, though run by a party with “Communist” in its name, is effectively capitalist). At first glance, the audio-visual approach in the sequel is familiar, with unobtrusive medium shots of Chinese youth hunched over noisy sewing machines, whose collective rattles form a white hum. Like the workers, you get used to the oppressive rumbles.

However, where the first film framed time as an expanse — it was, for better or worse, intentionally lethargic — “Youth (Hard Times)” is more surprising in its shot selection. The floors of these factories seem messier and more cluttered than those in the first film; they’re different spaces altogether, but this sleight of hand indicates, to anyone watching both films sequentially, that time has passed, and things are becoming untenable. The sequel uses the fluorescent lights and dark, winding hallways of the factory buildings to disorient viewers. What seems like daytime in one moment is soon revealed to be night, and vice versa, with characters wandering in and out of rooms and onto balconies, as Wang’s camera diligently follows. Time, essentially, loses all meaning when your life revolves around a single, repetitive task.

Most of the workers Wang introduces (through on-screen text) are in their early twenties and hail from Anhui province, a name whose repetition across such a lengthy runtime stokes curiosity. This subtle flourish ends up an intriguing bullet loaded in the movie’s chamber; it’s aimed squarely at a late payoff that, by necessity, must be meticulously earned. Along the way, Wang captures the kind of camaraderie and interpersonal drama that makes it worth the wait.

Wang’s focus, once again, never remains on any one character for too long, but he builds his overarching narrative through symbolic ironies. He captures shirtless men in the sweltering summer slaving over winter jackets they’ll never afford, or prospective couples denied the chance to explore romantic and sexual tensions — given the lack of time and space — working on crotchless lingerie.

A small handful of older workers broaden the story at hand. One woman brings her young daughter to help out. Another brings her mother. A stray shot of a visiting middle-aged relative with cotton balls stuffed in her nose (for reasons unexplained; perhaps the stench of sweat or clutter) calls to mind the process of embalming corpses in many countries, including China. Collectively, these images hold immense dramatic weight. They ask: Is this all there is for China’s poor, from the cradle to the grave — and beyond?

Before long, pay disagreements arise between the workers and their bosses, and for the first time in Wang’s trilogy, the sewing machines come to a stop. The ensuing silence, however, is eerie, as though a piece of the movie were missing. It’s almost depressing to consider, but perhaps toil under capitalist exploitation has become such a normal part of these people’s lives that the very act of grinding away now defines their identities, and consumes their sense of self. “Youth (Hard Times)” confronts this dilemma by pivoting towards tales of internal disagreements, of collective bargaining, and of the stark consequences therein. It becomes about China’s migrant youth attempting to break free of their bewildering confines within these factories, in which forced overtime and pittance-pay go hand-in-hand with losing one’s sense of the world outside, and the very experiences that make one human.