I was unaware that there was a Chinese equivalent to the "mockumentary", but this film falls more or less into that category. The film maker, Jia Zhang-ke made this film, and his point was to tell a story about the generations of people who worked in a state factory, which is just about to be demolished. He and his team interviewed about 50 people to get their insights and experiences, but amongst the group he was unable to find the right mix that he required to demonstrate the profound changes that have been occurring in China over the past 20 years. So instead of doing a straight ahead documentary, with an interviewer asking real people for their experiences, he did a combination. There are actors who are telling stories that propel the plot forfawrd intermingled with interviews with actual factory workers, and the audience does not know which is which. It is a docu-fiction hybrid, an essay in contemporary history and an experiment in cine-portraiture, vividly shot on high-definition video. The result is a deeply serious and sombre film, trying to find a way of telling the stories of people affected by the gigantic political and economic changes sweeping that country whose concerns must in the end affect us all: 21st-century China. The cinematography is fantastic, there are occasional flashes of humor, but overall it is a vision of what it is like to be a cog in the wheel that is industrial China, where there are pockets of billionaire wealth, but most people are just trying to make ends meet.
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