After shooting countless hours of footage between 2014 and 2019 for three films that span nearly ten hours total, Chinese documentarian Wang Bing concludes his sweeping “Youth” Trilogy with Youth (Homecoming), which hits select North American theaters on Friday, November 8. Once again diving into the dilapidated garment factories of the Zhili district of Huzhou City, China, Bing returns to the scene of his homeland’s economic lawlessness, maintaining a hyper-focus on the migrant workers employed at said garment workshops who struggle to construct balanced, prosperous lives under near impossible conditions that strike them down again and again. Maintaining the same proclivity for protracted, uninterrupted scenes from the first two installments that strongly mirror the monotony faced by Bing’s proletariat subjects, Youth (Homecoming) works as a slight departure from its predecessors by spending more time exploring the lives of the laborers outside of the confines of their cramped and punishing workspaces and the conditions of circumstance that lead them to take on such arduous trades.

As the Chinese New Year approaches, the workers of Zhili’s Yingchung Road garment workshops prepare to return to their provincial homelands for a much-needed holiday. Some employees impatiently await six months of late pay, without which they cannot afford the long travel home. Married couple Mu Fei and Dong Minyan ride an overbooked train back to their family residence in the snowy and mountainous Yunnan province, while Fang Lingping and Shi Wei look forward to wedding during their leave from work. Celebrations for the New Year are bountiful, complete with fireworks and rituals of wealth and well-being, far away from the smoggy air and sludgy streets of Zhili. When the festivities are complete, Bing’s subjects make their way back to the city, returning to their sewing machines and completing the existential cycle of labor that has ensnared them.

While Bing’s trilogy utilizes the same extended scenes throughout—ones that challenge convention and lean into durational cinema—each of the three documentaries finds its own singular shape. Spring centers around the interpersonal relationships between the garment factory workers and lays the groundwork for the world they inhabit. Hard Times focuses its attention on the financial struggles of the workers and the pushback they face against an economic system that marginalizes them. Homecoming opens itself up to a much broader perspective, both emotionally and existentially, capturing its subjects within the context of their familial backgrounds, far removed from Zhili’s garment district in a way that offers a much different understanding of their entire selves, disconnected from their labor. As Bing’s subjects return to their hometowns, straightforward handheld footage distinguishes between their rural lives and those they lead in the city. Still, it leaves room to understand the generational conditions that lead the underprivileged workers into such thankless labor, the destitution of their backgrounds that pressure them into taking on migrant work to support themselves and their loved ones. Elements of these “homecomings” bring forth the lasting effects of China’s Great Leap Forward, a facet of the Cultural Revolution that exploited and abused rural populations for the benefit of the country’s Communist Revolution.

Homecoming spreads its attention across a large number of worker subjects (simply introduced with their name, age, and hometown with title cards in a light blue font) but circles back to specific figures with a routineness that stands apart from the rest of the trilogy. Young partners Mu Fei and Dong Minyan are particularly accentuated by the generational responsibilities they face in caring for their ailing relatives, with Mu Fei’s father recently diagnosed with Tuberculosis. In one of the trilogy’s rare moments where Bing’s camera feels present within the shot, Mu Fei directly addresses the cameraperson in conversation, sharing her sobering feelings that she and her husband will never be able to afford to have children as they struggle to financially sustain themselves and their aging families. Another (freshly) married pair that carries a portion of Homecoming, Shi Wei and Fang Lingping embark on their lives together in the garment workshops following their New Year-timed wedding. Formerly employed in the IT industry, Fang Lingping is a newbie to the sewing machines, much to the frustration of his new wife, a seasoned pro who offers much guidance veiled by impatience. Both of these central blossoming couples serve as crucial cornerstones of Homecoming and the larger vision emphasized by Bing, one in which young people are increasingly underserved by the faceless, nameless economic powers that dictate their lives past, present, and future.

With a runtime clocking in at two hours and thirty-two minutes, Homecoming is the shortest entry in Bing's "Youth" Trilogy. The overall length of the project serves as one of its most demanding factors for theatrical audiences. However, the testing duration of Bing's vision always feels crucial, fully embedding the viewer within the tedium of the garment factory workers' lives and the unceasing nature of their labor. Serving as the trilogy's finale piece, Homecoming significantly frames its subjects within the context of the modern worlds they inhabit and the exploitation they face at the hands of Capitalism. While Homecoming and its predecessors have found much of its fanbase on the film festival circuit of the past two years, the trilogy in its entirety will likely serve as a highlight of Bing's career as a documentarian who continues to explore the relationships between individuals and the labor that controls them within contemporary society, a crisis not only specific to China but increasingly so across the entire globe. The uncompromising honesty and ambition of the “Youth” trilogy serve as an incredible testimony of real-world injustice that communicates powerfully with the objectives of documentary cinema.

4/5

2024 | 160 minutes | Color | Mandarin | English subtitles

'Youth (Homecoming)' premiered at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, where it was the only documentary film to compete in the Official Competition, before playing at other festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. Icarus Films will release 'Youth (Homecoming)' in select North American theaters beginning on Friday, November 8. Click here for more information about 'Youth (Homecoming).'

‘Youth (Homecoming)’ Review: Wang Bing Completes His Seminal “Youth” Trilogy

4/5

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