SLIFF 2009 Review: 24 CITY

Fact and fiction collide in 24 CITY, an unusual take on the documentary format from China. The state-owned aviation engine plant known as “Factory 420″ was built in 1958 in the southwest city of Chengdu and is shutting down to make way for a complex of luxury apartments called “24 City.” In the movie 24 CITY director Jia Zhangke combines shots of the factory and the surrounding city with talking-head monologues and interviews with workers who are losing their jobs. At first the film seems like a conventional documentary making a statement about the human cost of progress. The workers interviewed, old laborers as well as younger executives, have a real variety in terms of backgrounds and attitudes and their stories are sobering, moving and sometimes humorous. A lonely older woman sadly speaks of leaving her family’s overcrowded village to come work at the factory. A factory apprentice has an awkward reunion with his now-elderly master. An upwardly mobile young woman visits her mother at the factory and is shocked at the relatively oppressive working conditions. A worker recalls the grief of losing her child after losing him during a river journey to get to the factory. Artfully filmed, shots of run-down machinery and factory interiors overlap, or dissolve cleverly in and out of each other. Poems and songs, both classical and contemporary, are used as counterbalance. Sometimes the camera is still as a person speaks. Sometimes one person or a group look silently into the camera for long takes.

At some point, the viewer of 24 CITY begins to realize that some, but not all, of those interviewed are actually actors. Actors are used for some of long monologue sequences because director Zhangke interviewed over 130 people and claims he had to create composites and he makes no attempt to indicate what is documentary and what is acting. This hybrid approach is curious at first but perhaps this is Jia‘s comment on all of the agenda-driven documentaries being made today. The same developers who leveled Factory 420 financed this film, further implying that objectivity is a thing of the past and the blurring of lines is the new norm. 24 CITY is a provocative, timely, and touching portrait of people in transition but with it’s length (almost 2 hours) and generous silences, I wouldn’t expect it to appeal to popular audiences. I recommend 24 CITY.

24 CITY will screen at Frontenac on Monday, November 16th at 7:00pm and on Thursday, November 19th at 9:30pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.