We witness mounting moments of tension, such as when windshields shatter repeatedly and workers scramble to maintain the workflow, or when a crying female American worker asks an American male manager to intercede on her behalf with a male Chinese manager who, she argues, is demanding too much and being impolite. American Factory, in other words, creates moments of human-scale drama and even intimacy while maintaining a seemingly objective view.Дramatic pressure builds as the film unfolds and the demands of capital impact the bodies and minds of the workers. We see scenes in China as well, such as when the American management team travels there for a summit.

We have access to the factory floor during production, to meetings of upper management, to workers in their homes reflecting on their lives, and to pro-union picket lines outside the factory gate, among many other scenes and locations. The film is notably wide-ranging while remaining centered on the factory and its community. Stylistically, American Factory takes an observational approach, with events and conversations appearing on screen as a matter of course. One middle-aged American refers to a fellow employee as his вЂњChinese brother.вЂќ In another scene, an American manager breaks into tears after seeing a number of Chinese workers get married he states, вЂњwe are one,вЂќ apparently feeling connected by a shared heteronormativity. As one might imagine, this generates a wide range of illuminating scenes and interactions numerous conflicts occur, as do occasional moments of cross-cultural bonding.

In these moments, we see that although the directors of American Factory may want to refrain from simplistic cultural stereotypes, the managers and workers involved in this venture draw upon clichГ©s and stereotypes as a shorthand to explain their unusual circumstance. The film shows training lectures given to the two workforces, where Chinese and Americans are told about the ostensible differences in their national cultures and, in optimistic terms, how Fuyao will conjoin these cultures. Amidst this odd division of labor, American employees discuss how much less they make at Fuyao than they did at GM, grim but grateful to have any employment at all. Fuyao employs a number of Americans to help lead the management of the Ohio plant, while the company also brings in a number of Chinese factory workers, who appear to work in excess of the standard 8-hour workday and Monday-through-Friday, 40-hour work week. Nevertheless, American Factory is especially interested in how cultural differences, between вЂњAmericanвЂќ and вЂњChinese,вЂќ intersect in complex ways with the already dramatic circumstances of global capitalвЂ™s local manifestations.ДЄt first, it seems that everything at the factory is good, if a little different than in the past, but the situation sours fairly quickly. Although focused on the plant and its workers, this setting is clearly linked to the vagaries of the international flows of capital and finance, which decimate some local economies while enriching others in a process of creative destruction and (sometimes) rejuvenation. If American Factory offers a twist on the narrative of capitalвЂ™s drive to discipline and punish workers, it is through its attention to a Chinese company operating in the American Midwest. The new owner provides many in the area with a much-welcomed return to work, but as the film shows, working for Fuyao is unusual in a number of ways and presents serious challenges, which provide ample material for the filmвЂ™s drama. American Factory picks up at the same plant in 2015, when it is purchased by the Chinese automotive glass manufacturer Fuyao.

Produced and directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, American Factory is a sequel of sorts to the pairвЂ™s Oscar-nominated film, The Last Truck: The Closing of a GM Plant (2009), which documented the closing of a car factory outside of Dayton, OH, and the people whose lives were affected. We hear from factory managers that they have spies in the workforce to identify union activists.

We see the capitalist owner complain about lazy employees. We see factory workers suffer injuries because of unsafe work conditions. Indeed, one of the most surprising aspects of the film is how unsurprising so much of it is to anyone who knows anything about the history of working-class politics or has read a bit of Karl Marx. вЂњA New Take on Post-FordismвЂќ Daniel Herbert (University of Michigan)ДЄmerican Factory is a smart and engaging film that tells a classic story of labor versus capital.

American factory