Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks – Part 1: Rest (2003)

Directed by: Bing Wang | 240 minutes | documentary

With ‘Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks’, Chinese director Bing Wang charts the economic decline of one of the most densely populated industrial areas in northeast China. The film is a long journey along the railway that cuts through the area. In three parts ‘Rest’, ‘Remnants’ and ‘Rails’, each part being a separate documentary, he shows the many personal problems that preoccupy the people in the Tie Xi district.

Part 1 is entitled ‘rest’ and takes the steel and copper plate factories along the railway as its starting point. The metalworks were built in 1934 to produce weapons for the Imperial Japanese Army. They were put into use for civilian purposes just after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. In the factories, employment reached its peak in the early 1980s. Many people who had been sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution returned. In the early 1990s, the decline set in and there was a loss. At the end of 1999 they closed one by one. It becomes clear that the area, once the heart of the labour-intensive industry of blast furnaces and steel companies, is not prepared for the future with the necessary modernizations. The desolate feeling that arises after the factories close is partly due to the fact that it is wedged between the communist legacy and the more capitalist future. The director is, as it were, one of the employees and so he strolls through the abandoned spaces of past glory, but also meets the last remaining workers and you get a glimpse of the former activity in the factories, but above all it is waiting for the inevitable bankruptcy award by the government.

Directed by: Bing Wang | 240 minutes | documentary

With ‘Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks’, Chinese director Bing Wang charts the economic decline of one of the most densely populated industrial areas in northeast China. The film is a long journey along the railway that cuts through the area. In three parts ‘Rest’, ‘Remnants’ and ‘Rails’, each part being a separate documentary, he shows the many personal problems that preoccupy the people in the Tie Xi district.

Part 1 is entitled ‘rest’ and takes the steel and copper plate factories along the railway as its starting point. The metalworks were built in 1934 to produce weapons for the Imperial Japanese Army. They were put into use for civilian purposes just after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. In the factories, employment reached its peak in the early 1980s. Many people who had been sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution returned. In the early 1990s, the decline set in and there was a loss. At the end of 1999 they closed one by one.

It becomes clear that the area, once the heart of the labour-intensive industry of blast furnaces and steel companies, is not prepared for the future with the necessary modernizations. The desolate feeling that arises after the factories close is partly due to the fact that it is wedged between the communist legacy and the more capitalist future. The director is, as it were, one of the employees and so he strolls through the abandoned spaces of past glory, but also meets the last remaining workers and you get a glimpse of the former activity in the factories, but above all it is waiting for the inevitable bankruptcy award by the government. Visualizing industrial decay is one of Zhang Ke Jia’s style characteristics. With ‘Still Life’ and to a lesser extent ’24 City’ he made this industry decline look almost magical. Where Zhang Ke Jia prefers overview shots, Bing Wang focuses on the factories themselves, where the decay and rubbish left behind give the documentary something sinister and leave you with a very desolate feeling. In ‘Rest’ the director visits the factories in the period (1999-2001) when they are declared bankrupt one by one and the employees have no certainty about their future. They know that the factory will have to close, but without training (as a direct result of the Cultural Revolution) they also know that it will not be easy to find new work. The workers do realize that they are being cheated, but they are terrified of being fired. After all, that would mean that after thirty years of loyal service you are suddenly no longer entitled to your pension benefit. Also, the working conditions are far from optimal, the lead value is exceeded by more than a hundred times the permitted amount. The majority of workers have lead poisoning with the serious result that their children are sometimes born sick. All workers have to go to the hospital on a regular basis to have the lead from their blood through medical treatments (injections). Not only lead, but also minerals and vitamins are broken down as a result, so that they stay in the hospital for a month, a number of times every year and if you just keep quiet about the poisoning, otherwise your job is immediately at risk. “Worker safety means product quality”. These impressive words on the facade of a factory inadvertently create the greatest possible irony.

The hopeless situation is exacerbated by the workers who try to steal tools from the factory in order to have something left, this is justified because they have not received wages for a long time, but more it shows that no one believe in the survival of their jobs. There is never much emotion on the faces of the Chinese workers, but it is very striking that there is a lot of criticism of the policy, criticism that until recently was not tolerated. An enormous contrast is the New Year’s drink where a Chinese worker passionately sings a Party song and the fire in her eyes suggests that she is proud of her country. ‘Tie Xi Qu’ shows factories as gigantic lumps of rust where workers in dilapidated canteens argue with each other about trivial matters. What Bing Wang does is admirable, by following ordinary people with their daily worries, he manages to grasp the tragic situation by the collar. Something interesting doesn’t happen in every scene, but it is the monotony that makes the events and personal stories of the workers come into their own.

The first part ‘Rest’ of the trilogy ‘Tie Xie Qu: West of the Tracks’ is a beautiful and human documentary. Bing Wang pays tribute to the workers and their struggles with everyday problems where the hope for a better future is almost nil.