Solace and Solidarity on the Factory Floor

Early in Wang Bing's 2023–24 documentary series, Youth, a brawl breaks out between two young factory workers. What starts as sophomoric workplace clowning, a distraction from the rigor of labor, ends up close to blows. Held back by an older relative, one worker threatens to report the instigators to factory management. "I'll make you disappear—you'll be history!" he shouts. the outburst is one of several of the film's spontaneous invocations of history. For the Chinese director, the past is a compass rose—one by which he has navigated local and global themes.