timmy_501 Zhang Ke Jia's 24 City has an unusually oblique narrative, mostly told through a series of interviews that initially seem to have little connection to one another. As the film goes on, narrative threads begin to come together into a coherent whole. This narrative strategy is initially off putting but eventually yields dividends for the patient viewer. The narrative has some interesting things to say about Chinese culture, which Zhang depicts as quite rigid with little mobility economically or geographically for most people. At the same time, people's situations aren't particularly stable as several workers talk about suddenly losing their jobs through no fault of their own. In spite of a lack of external motivation, citizens are expected to be very internally motivated and express this through patriotic team fervor and self-sacrifice. In spite of how inherently un-cinematic the interviews (which make up the majority of this film) are, Zhang is able to bring his mastery of the medium to bear and 24 City ultimately transcends this limitation. One way he does this is to surround each interview segment with scenes full of action, such as numerous factory sequences and one memorable early shot taken from a moving truck. He also makes the interviews themselves visually interesting in a couple of way. First, most of the interviews incorporate some sort of background movement, including one that has two men playing badminton and another that offers frequent glimpses of foot traffic. Secondly, each interview takes place in a carefully designed space that tends to be both full of detail and reflective of the unique characteristics of the interviewee. Finally, he uses camera movements quite carefully for emphasis throughout. Ultimately, 24 City is an example of how carefully employed cinematic techniques can make even material which initially seems quite humdrum and unsuited for film into a memorably viewing experience.

Emil Bakkum In general documentaries are underrated, although they are often more perplexing than fiction. In particular the documentaries that employ a personal approach offer plenty of opportunities for empathy and identification. The film "24 city" about the life in a Chinese factory is certainly a piece of art. By sheer coincidence, China has been the host to many similar produces. Joris Ivens was hooked on China, and made among others "The 400 million" (1939, about the resistance against Japan), "La Pharmacie 3" (1976, about a pharmacy) and "Une histoire de ballon" (1976, about a school). The latter two documentaries were recorded during the notorious Cultural Revolution. Much later there was "China blue" of Peled, about life in a Chinese textile factory. And now we have "24 city", this time made by a native producer. We are introduced to some ten people with various backgrounds, who are in some way involved in factory 420. Their stories give a lively impression of the Chinese community and nation in the past sixty years. Of course the backcloth, the production for the military air force, is not neutral. It is well known from American research, that the military-industrial complex is cherished by the state and makes excessive profits. And indeed the laborers of factory 420 have privileged working conditions. Therefore it is surprising to hear, that after the war against Vietnam the factory came in penury, in spite of the strong national economic growth. The production even had to be diversified to fridges and washing machines for the consumer market. Obviously the Chinese politics has not been directed towards imperialism. On the other hand, it suggests the attempt of the military to penetrate civil markets, similar to the habits in for instance Egypt. In the same vein, the factory apparently engages in the development of real estate. The factory 420 employed several thousands of workers, which had been mainly recruited from the country side. In fact the film shots suggest that the equipment is primitive and outdated. The location Chengdu had been selected, because in the fifties its position appeared safe from a strategic point of view. The first workers had to travel for two weeks in order to reach their new destination (and afterwards didn't have enough money to visit their family). A moving story tells about a married couple, who on their journey to the factory lost their little son during an intermediate stop. You would guess that they would temporarily split up or so in order to find him, but no, they didn't want to miss the boat and simply continued their journey without the boy. Perhaps this is less astounding, if you consider the instrumental role of children in large parts of Asia (and South-America and Africa, by the way). Lack of food and health care, physical cruelty and even infanticide are common. Considering that the production is on a mass scale and cheap labor prohibits the automation, the activities in the factory are repetitive and mind numbing (a characteristic of all serial production). Still the original workers, who undoubtedly remember the past famines, accept these circumstances. On the other hand, the youth of the past decades appears to develop a different attitude, and demand satisfaction in their work (which however in an industrial environment seems too ambitious). The film clearly shows that since the fifties the young workers had always craved for a marriage, but apparently especially the earlier generations experienced severe problems, due to the loss of their traditional society and due to lacking personal social skills. In spite of the Cultural Revolution, class differences still abound (the inequality in China and the USA is comparable). There is little room for happiness and social well-being in factory 420. Still, the Bolshevists tried to create close and autonomous communities in their factories. Just like the others, factory 420 had its own schools, cultural and sporting facilities and even food. The workers engage in social games in tea houses, and in dancing and singing (The Internationale in Chinese). All in all, "24 city" definitely is thought-provoking. The geostrategical importance of China explodes, and therefore the introduction of democratic control mechanisms is clearly overdue. You can see in the film how its absence keeps the people in a strait-jacket. If you enjoy social and labor issues, consider seeing my other reviews (I discovered 24 city thanks to a reference).

Joseph Sylvers Zhang Ke Jai has(at least to me) grown substantially since "The World", able to leave some of the melodrama behind and let his characters and the landscapes speak for themselves. "24 City" is a beautiful film, both relevant and moving in the ways "Up In The Air" wishes it were.A factory in Chengdu, China that has been in operation for generations is being closed down to make room for a upscale high rise apartment building called "24 City" ironically named after a poem about harmony. We follow a series of interviews with former factory workers about their lives in and around the factory.Some of the interviews could have been shortened or illustrated visually instead of having us just watching talking heads speaking over silence, but that is my personal preference.It could be argued, by not re-creating their lives Jai gives his subjects a sense of dignity, and creates an intimacy between them and the viewer that would be otherwise lost. For the most part I would agree, though in honesty, I did get anxious more than a few times during some of these discussions. Jai's subjects at first seemed to be almost rambling inconsequentially, but as the film goes on, their statements become enmeshed in each other and the film as a whole, and intricately articulate how the factory for generations was their entire world, romantically, socially, philosophically, and culturally.Some of the workers had their first fights there, their first loves, some moved their whole families on the promise of work, while others left their families behind, and suddenly this community which has sustained them all this time has disappeared, moved by forces beyond their control. Part of the film is documentary, but some of the interviews are "fictional" and feature actors.I had trouble telling the difference between those who were actors and who were actual workers, but the mixture between the authentic and the dramatic only serves to highlight the contrast between the promise of worker's solidarity and justice and the realities of changing economic priorities. Jai's "The World" offered us the best metaphor for the globalized melancholic that I've yet to see, that of an amusement park masquerading as the greatest architectural achievements of humanity, while those who toil in it are increasingly alienated from any sense of "authentic" culture, themselves, and each other. That film itself, however was not as compelling as it's ideas.In many ways "24 City" and so I am told Jai's similar, "Still Life" continue this series on the changing face of China, and the "real" people caught up in this global gentrification. What made me look at "24 City" as something other than just a clever polemic was a baffling scene of a girl skating to a soft, bubbly, trance like electronic song. The girl skates in circles, and the music plays and we just observe her, and the song continues, as the camera floats off looking across the city and the mammoth building rising up into the skyline. I don't know what if any purpose this scene had to the rest of the film, but it was lovely. Equally startling were the huge crowds of workers, by the hundreds in the film's first scenes, that are as overwhelming as the CG throngs of countless soldiers and orcs from "The Lord Of The Rings" epic battle-scapes. In those moments Zhang makes his cinematic eye, rival and better his(at least for me)binding interest in social realism.Realism especially of the socially progressive variety is not my cup of tea (to put a borderline pathological aversion mildly), but "24 City" made, if not a believer, than a fascinated viewer out of me. If globalization has to be "hot button" of contemporary art, if there must be sad-sack post-modernist which stylistically bite the hands that feed them, if the classical Marxist themes of alienation, class, and gentrification must persist on into the next decade, we could all do worse than to see them filtered through Zhang's warm humanism (another term I would usually avoid).It's not a thrill a minute, and there is no George Clooney smirking to enjoy, but "24 City" is rewarding, intimate, and oddly sensual, which few politicized movies, and even fewer documentaries, seem capable of doing these days. This is the first Jai I enjoyed, and makes me interested to visit the rest of the oeuvre.

Harry T. Yung Does a structure of concrete and steel have life? You bet, if interwoven with the stories of people from three generations and a variety of backgrounds and aspirations. This is exactly what Director JIA Zhangke accomplished with this project. The transformation of "Factory 420" (an aviation engine factory built in 1958) into a modern-day upscale apartment complex "24 City" is documented in 8 or 9 interviews (depending on which film festival program you are read – Cannes 08, TIFF 08 or HKIFF 09). Through these stories that are sobering, often touching and sometimes humorous, the concrete and steel structure "Factory 420" acquires a life of its own, from birth to demise and rebirth as "24 City". This structure in turn serves as a motif for witnessing the vicissitudes and development of the city Chengdu.Despite the fact that there is no dramatisation of these stories, which are told, literally, by the interview objects right in front of a stationary camera all the time, they are mesmerising. The interviewees are as varied as can be: an old factory worker, and even older party (Communist) official, a factory executive in the next generation, an idealistic young man, three women – two from each of the first and second generation workers and the youngest born in 1982, daughter of the factory worker but on her way of becoming a yuppie herself. There are some others, shorter segments which perhaps gives rise to the varying views of how many interviews there are.The poignancy in the older generation is moving, particularly in the cases where it is the real worker. The factory executive's account of his adolescent adventures, including a "puppy love" courtship, provides some comic relief. While the men interviewed are the real people themselves, the three women are professional actors. Joan Chen plays a middle age spinster who has missed her chance when she was the "factory flower". Her portrayal of this woman who at the same time values her freedom and laments her loneliness is superb. At one point, she even plays the "Julia Robert's joke" in "Ocean's twelve" – this worker tells how she is nicknamed "Little flower" because she looked like the actress Joan Chen in a movie playing a character with that name. Director Jia's favourite actor ZHAO Tao (who has appeared in just about every film he has made) plays a 27-year-old woman coming to sudden realization of her love for her mother, an emotion that has hitherto been buried deep down.The film closes with Director Jia's signature super-slow penning camera, a panoramic view of Chengdu from the vintage point of an observation tower.