Tiexi Qu: West of the Tracks
While other documentaries fail to hold my attention, this 9-hour mammoth kept me captivated the entire runtime. This goes beyond simple “documenting.” It’s more in the realm of anthropology and ethnology. Despite being split into three parts (Rust, Remnants, and Rails), it is still one film. It’s still connected and goes back full circle at the end. This is mainly because this is the story of a micro society from different points of view. It’s more or less the same story on three parallel railways.
The first part, Rust, is the longest of the three, clocking in at four hours, and from a more global perspective, it is the most important piece of this gigantic puzzle.
In this part, we follow workers from three different factories on their daily jobs. What transcends the normal act of documenting these laborers and their horrible working conditions is the fact that we spend so much time with them. We are there in their daily conversations in the break room, where they discuss their working conditions, the state of the factory , tell stories and joke. We were there, sitting with them. We don’t interrupt them or affect their conversations. Some of them do talk to the camera, but that rarely happens. The way the film is shot turns us into an invisible entity, just observing, nonjudgmentally. This quasi-objective camera sort of puts us in the shoes of these workers; more accurately, it brings us the closest to their reality from the privileged comfort of our homes (or theaters, that is). During these first four essential hours, we witness the twilight of the factories of Tiexi. Slowly, one by one, these three factories (and many others, but we only see 3) file bankruptcy and lay off their workers. The laborers’ destiny is determined, and they are just waiting for the eventual closing of the factory. They spend months without pay, they inhale toxic fumes of poisonous lead for most of their lives; and all for practically nothing, which pushes some of them to “steal” tools from the dying factory (and I used quotation marks because these tools are technically their own tools). This was brought on by poor management, greed, and corruption.
Invisible forces dominate their lives and they are independent of their work. No matter how hard they work, the pay is the same and the factory is going to close.
And so we have established this larger image, but at the same time, there are two more images. The first thing that we saw is the reality at the time, the twilight, the coming of the end. The second is the image painted by the nostalgia of the workers. When they talk about how a few years back in the early nineties, the factories were flourishing, this image is contrasted by what we currently see, where they can barely keep them running. The third image is the one anticipated by everyone, the eventual end of the factories, which we witness ourselves later on in the film.
The second part of the film, Remnants, focuses more or less on the town surrounding the factories, where most of the laborers live. We follow a group of 17-year-olds around this town, and just like the factories, their future is a vast unknown. The living conditions at home are even more harsh than those at work, as this region is known for its very cold and snowy weather. They have to endure up to 6 months of winter.
On top of that, they are faced with private contractors basically forcing them to evacuate their homes to be demolished, and so now they have to relocate to small flats and leave everything behind. Once again, we are in the twilight zone, as home after home gets emptied and demolished. Naturally, there are a few who refuse to leave so easily and stay till the bitter end. Until the conditions are unbearable even for them, electricity and water are cut off to further pressure them to leave.
The third and final part brings us to the veins and arteries of this system, the rails. After seeing how this micro society lives off the scraps of the system, we now follow an old man and his son, living off the scraps of the scraps. Without a wife and a mother, and with no jobs, they rely on picking up coal from the railroads. This part probably has the biggest emotional impact out of the three, because our attention is more focused on a few individuals, but it doesn’t sacrifice any part of the larger image. There is no exaggeration or even dramatization of the events and tragedies we witness; reality is often harsher than fiction, which is unfortunately the case.
We also take a look at the railroad workers, running the trains that bring in and out materials to the factories that are still running. Other than Tixie itself, the train plays a major role in this epic tale. Are the people passengers on the train ? Or did this train leave them in the dust?
The film’s main obstacle might seem to be the 9-hour runtime, but it never feels this way. The film’s heaviness comes from the harsh reality it’s depicting. This is evidence of the immense power something as simple as a camera can have. Sadly, not many people get to experience this. Almost 20 years after its release, this film will only have a bigger impact. It’s not a time capsule of a bygone era, it’s an eternal struggle that is still with us today. Our lives are still shaped by the material conditions surrounding us. When every day is a fight for survival, there is no room for dreams. The ending is bleak, but the ending is real.
