Wang Bing’s Shared Spaces of Labor

Since the early 1990s, independent filmmakers have dealt with representations of labor to investigate China's rapid transformation. Since the turn of the century, the increasing awareness of the limits of cinematic representations to tackle the contradictions of the Chinese system has led to more challenging approaches, with Wang Bing's cinema among the most effective. This article focuses on Wang Bing's work and discusses it as “cinema of labor.” Indeed, since his long documentary Tiexi qu/Tiexi qu. West of the Tracks (2003), on the closing down of a huge industrial area in the northeastern region of Liaoning, Wang Bing's cinema has created a shared experience involving both the viewer and the filmmaker. For over a decade, he has revitalized the concept of cinema as a tool of investigation and social intervention as confirmed by his feature film on the eponymous labor camp Jiabiangou/The Ditch (2010). With his most recent documentaries San zimei/Three Sisters (2012) and Feng Ai/'Til Madness Do Us Part (2013), shot in the rural areas of the Yunnan Mountains and in the enclosed space of a mental asylum, he has further challenged the intersection of documentary and drama to expose the paradoxes of the fast-paced Chinese development.

Chinese cinema has been often discussed in relation to issues of labor. Since the early '90s, independent filmmakers have dealt with representations of labor to investigate China's rapid transformation. The increasing awareness of the limits of cinematic representations to tackle the contradictions of the Chinese system has led to more challenging approaches, with Wang Bing’s cinema amongst the most effective. Adopting a multidisciplinary perspective, which tackles both the practice of filmmaking and film exhibition, this article focuses on Wang Bing's work and discusses it as 'cinema of labor'. Indeed, since his long documentary Tiexi qu (2001), on the dismantling of a huge industrial area in the northern region of Liaoning, Wang Bing's cinema has aimed at creating a shared experience involving both the viewer and the filmmaker. For over a decade, he has aimed to revitalize the concept of cinema as a tool of investigation and social intervention as confirmed by his works on labor camp survivors (He Fengming, Jiabiangou/The Ditch). With his most recent San zimei/Three Sisters (2012), he has further challenged the intersection of documentary and drama in order to go beyond any