American Factory Review: New Global and Poor Shelters

"The most important thing That's the amount we're earning, "said Chinese billionaire Cao Dewang. "American factory" shortly before, we see it in a private jet. What is important, he says, are The Americans' point of view on China and its people.

In 2016, Cao opened a division of Fuyao, its global manufacturer of auto glass, in a closed General Motors factory near Dayton, Ohio. Blame the sagging of S.U.V. sales, GM had shut down the plant – known as the General Motors assembly plant at Moraine – in December 2008, putting thousands of people out of work the same month, the US government had launched a plan multi-billion dollar auto industry bailout. The Dayton plant remained inactive until Fuyao announced its recovery, investing millions of dollars and hiring hundreds of local workers, the number quickly increased.

Seasoned directors Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, who are a couple and live outside Dayton, have documented the film G.M. plants when he closed. They included the picture of the last truck coming out of the chain in their 2009 short film, "The Last Truck: Closure of a GM Plant". This crystallizing image also appears in "American Factory", which revisits the factory. six years later. The feature film that they tell here is complex, moving, timely and beautifully shaped, and covers the continents while taking stock of the past, present and possible future of the hand-d & # 39; American work. (This is Barack and Michelle Obama's first film from Higher Ground Productions with Netflix.)

"American factory" opens with a brief look in tears on the closure of the plant that sketches the past and announces the difficult times ahead. The story itself starts in 2015 in the upbeat tumult of new beginnings, including a rah-rah Fuyao presentation for US job seekers. Bognar and Reichert, who have shot the film with several others – the publisher, Lindsay Utz – have great attention to the faces and they are fast approaching the range of expressions in the play. Some candidates sit and listen stoically; a woman she put his mouth back, gently rocking into his seat, marking a nervous rhythm as the representative of Fuyao delivers his speech.

With detailed details, interviews and visuals, the filmmakers quickly establish a clear and strong narrative line as the new company – Fuyao Glass America – takes off. The optimism of the workers is palpable; access to filmmakers is remarkable. Bognar and Reichert have spent a number of years creating "American Factory", a commitment that shines through the layered storytelling and confidence they have earned. Visiting American and Chinese workers open their homes and hearts, including Wong He, an attractive and melancholy stove engineer who speaks with emotion about his wife and children in China.

His account is just a story in an emotional and political chronicle of capitalism, propaganda, conflicting values ​​and workers' rights. As the plant progresses, optimism gives way to discomfort, dissent and fear. Some workers are injured, others are in danger. the glass breaks, the spirits fray. Both the Chinese and American leadership complain about the production and especially the American workers who, in turn, seem especially grateful for another shot. Operator Jill Lamantia lives in her sister's basement when we meet her for the first time. A job at Fuyao allows her to move into her own apartment but, like everyone, she struggles requests from the company.

By the time the documentary moves to China, it has become clear that something will have to yield, on the occasion of a visit of US leaders on the mother ship Fuyao. The American subsidiary loses money and President Cao, as he called, is not happy. His frustration may seem funny, but as his dissatisfaction increases, the temperature cools and management becomes openly hostile. For viewers who have never looked inside a Chinese factory, these scenes – with their singalongs, their team building exercises and their extravagant reenactments – may seem strange or perhaps a brilliant variation of contemporary business management practice (cue the next confab apple).

"American Factory" is political without being didactic or strident, intelligently linking socio-political points, sometimes with the help of a moving score by Chad Cannon evoking Aaron Copland. Filmmakers do not despise anyone, even if some participants get very close to the whirlwind of waxed mustaches, like a joking American manager telling a Chinese colleague that it would be good to stick tape in the mouths of workers talkative Americans. This is a shocking exchange – only the Chinese manager seems to fear being filmed – simply because of the frankness of the antagonism towards the company's own work force.

These are these men and women – Timi Jernigan, John Crane, Shawnea Rosser, Robert Allen and so many others – His optimism and disappointment give the film its emotional dimension and its stories contrast with the story he himself created. He remembers that the China of his youth was poor; now he is, according to Forbes, one of the "richest in China" and his hobbies are golf and art collection. You see the fruits of his efforts in "American Factory", in scenes of him to relax and pontificate. And work too, of course, always, including in a luxurious setting. office where two realistic socialist paintings show it against the sky like a Mao updated with elegance – an image that filmmakers s & # 39; focus, letting its meaning flourish as a hundred flowers.