Ten years after the beginning of principal photography, Wang Bing has completed what became a trilogy about young people working in the textile industry in the town of Zhili, in the Chinese prefecture of Huzhou. Following Youth: Spring in Cannes in 2023 and Youth: Hard Times in Locarno a year later, Venice became the premiere venue for Youth: Homecoming. A somewhat baffling strategy, despite the director’s festival pedigree, since the three films are not standalone, a factor that will also come into play when the matter of distribution outside the festival circuit comes up.
Then again, this is something the filmmaker himself has taken into account, openly acknowledging that a project like his is unlikely to get eyeballs in a context that isn’t tied to hardcore cinephilia, not least because of the combined running time of the three films. He has stated he tried to keep the trilogy’s overall duration at ten hours or less, a feat he has (just about) achieved: with its 152 minutes, Homecoming – the shortest installment – brings the total to 591, just nine minutes shy of the self-imposed maximum.
Whether one connects with this final visit to the factories in Zhili hinges largely on their familiarity with the previous two movies, although Homecoming does have an arc of its own: as per the title, this film deals with the young workers’ attempts to go back home for New Year’s, a goal that is not easily attainable since many of them are still waiting for the salary payment that would allow them to make the trip. For some of them, this is also the opportunity to get married. But is starting a new family compatible with the working and living conditions shown across the trilogy?
With entirely European backing (the film is a co-production of France, the Netherlands and Luxembourg), Wang Bing spent years following his subjects, effectively moving to the region in 2014 and staying there until 2019, while also working on other projects in the meantime (the closing moments of Homecoming hint at the then imminent pandemic). The trilogy is inextricably tied to its production history, as the director has used his international clout to shine a spotlight on aspects of Chinese living that he wouldn’t be allowed to film under the auspices of his own government (in 2010, his fiction film The Ditch, about Mao-era labor camps, screened in Venice as a surprise film to avoid political repercussions).
As he silently observes the frustrations of young people who have come to Zhili for the sole purpose of making money, and tacitly accepted the dehumanizing conditions that entails, the filmmaker almost becomes one of them, consumed by a region that occupied a large chunk of his waking moments for years. The end credits for all three films include an acknowledgement of all the people who allowed him to enter their lives, effectively accepting him as one of them as their daily struggles to reconcile youthful ambitions and the stark, exploitative reality of their situation were laid bare on camera.
There is, in fact, a bitter irony hidden within the film’s subtitle: as the vacation period inevitably comes to an end and everyone must eventually make their way back to the factories (assuming their finances allowed them to leave in the first place), one wonders if the workplace has become the real home for these people, including the film crew. And at the same time, even though it’s been five years since the end of filming, it’s also as if Wang Bing were finally allowed to close the book on the experience, condensing ten years total of work in just under ten, excruciatingly compelling hours.
Director: Wang Bing
Producers: Nicolas R. de la Mothe, Vincent Wang, Hui Mao, Gilles Chanial
Cinematography: Liu Xianhui, Song Yang, Ding Bihan, Shan Xiaohui, Maeda Yoshitaka, Wang Bing
Sound: Ranko Paukovic
Production companies: Gladys Glover Films, House On Fire, CS Production,
World sales: Pyramide International
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Competition)
In Mandarin
152 minutes
