Youth (Homecoming)

In Mao’s era, Chinese youth was an idealistic symbol; today, young people are an ever-exploited population, compelled to relocate to the textile workshops of Zhili. This third part of Wang Bing’s Youth project shows us the temporary joy of these workers as they visit home.

Wang Bing, a foremost documentary commentator on the state of contemporary China, remembers that the heroic, revolutionary rhetoric of Mao’s era cannily romanticised the driving idea of youth: young people building a new social order. Wang’s epic Youth project, on the contrary, uses this idea ironically: its youthful subjects are an ever-exploited, ever-replaceable population, compelled to relocate to the textile workshops of Zhili. The third and final part, Youth (Homecoming), expands what we only briefly witnessed in the previous part, Youth (Hard Times): when these workers return home to see their friends and family, or to marry. The vibrancy of local rituals (music, dance, laughter, fireworks galore) brings an unexpected note of joyfulness to the Youth series. But not for long: soon it will be time to return to the noisy machines and messy spaces of Zhili.

Here, Wang takes observational, non-interventionist documentary cinema to its radical extreme. Eschewing all voice-over commentary, musical accompaniment or subtle, editorial tricks, he aims to integrate himself, over long periods of time, into the everyday behaviour of those he films. Yet he does not seek to render himself and his crew invisible; the participants sometimes refer (jokingly or critically) to his close presence.

– Cristina Álvarez López

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