‘Youth (Spring)’ Review: Wang Bing’s Unflinching Garment-Workers Doc Unravels Over Its Lengthy Runtime
variety.comJessica Kiang It is somehow emblematic of modern China — at least of its seamier side, as frequently explored in director Wang Bing’s unsparing documentaries — that the street on which his long, oppressive new film “Youth (Spring)” takes place should be called “Happiness Road.” A collection of clothing manufacturing workshops, arranged like a mall around a rubble-strewn central thoroughfare 150 miles and a world away from Shanghai, this semi-derelict location is so poorly described by its name that one could suspect its planners of having a little joke.
Except that here in Zhili City, irony — like leisure time, fresh air and natural light — is a luxury few can afford, least of all the teens and twentysomethings spending 15-hour workdays on site before retiring to equally rundown flophouse dormitories.
Scored only to the ceaseless rattle of sewing machines and the pop songs blasted through the studios at top volume, “Youth (Spring)” (the first instalment of a planned wider project to be culled from around 2,600 hours of footage) follows a dozen or so of the young people, mostly migrants from neighboring Anhui province, employed in these mini-factories.
Their circumstances are harsh, their surroundings dystopian. The Happiness Road lot could easily be repurposed as the backdrop for a blockbuster sci-fi set in the aftermath of an extinction-level event.
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