Directed by Wang Bing • Documentary • 2024 • 160 minutes
Shi Wei, a young migrant garment worker, flops back onto a pile of soft fabric bundles on his workshop’s floor, cellphone in hand. “Shit, I’m exhausted,” he says to the boss who’s trying to get him to sew more clothing before the Lunar New Year break. “I’m beat, I tell you.”
Work in the garment factories of Zhili, where some 300,000 migrants from rural China sew clothing, is winding down for the season. Finally, the incessant hum of sewing machines fades away. Now it’s time for the workers to try and convince their managers to pay them so they can return home for New Year celebrations.
YOUTH (Homecoming) is the final installment in Wang Bing’s ambitious trilogy on the young workers of Zhili, shot over five years. But in contrast to the previous films, here Wang focuses more closely on a handful of characters. We follow them on their journeys back to their families, riding packed trains and negotiating perilous mountain roads. Back home, the factories of Zhili seem far away, as Shi Wei and another young worker, Fang Lingping, celebrate weddings.
After the holidays end, the newlyweds and other workers head back to Zhili. YOUTH is a fitting end to the series — a quieter and more intimate film, and a powerful record of the unseen young labor force that drives garment production at a steep personal cost.
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