Allan Fish Online Film Festival: Day #4: “West of the Tracks”

by Sachin Gandhi

West of the Tracks (Tie Qi Xu, 2003, Wang Bing): Parts I, II and III

Wang Bing is one of the best filmmakers working today yet his films are not as well known compared to other international film directors. One big reason has to do with accessibility of his films via legal channels. His films have been a fixture at many international film festivals but have found little distribution beyond the film festival circuit. Physical media of his films (DVD/Blu-Rays) are a rarity and until recently, many of his films weren’t available for streaming. Tracking down his debut film West of the Tracks was almost a seven year hunt for me.

I was first alerted to Wang Bing’s potential via a magnificent article by Robert Koehler in Cinema Scope where Koehler asks of Wang Bing’s West of the Tracks: “is there a more sublime debut in recent history?” Thus began a hunt for that film but a DVD/Blu-Ray was out of sight. That changed in 2010 when a Rotterdam Film Festival issued DVD came out. I wasn’t the only one who came across that DVD in 2010. Allan Fish posted an entry on this site in 2010 as well.

West of the Tracks, divided in three parts, highlights the decline of the Tie Xi industrial sector in Northeast China. The film requires an investment of nine hours from its viewers but it rewards those patient viewers with plenty of riches. The three parts are a great example of “Direct Cinema” where the camera patiently records everything in sight and allows viewers to listen in to all the daily noises while leaving plenty of room for us to draw our own conclusions.

The first part Rust is almost 4 hours long and is the pick of the bunch. The fly-on-the-wall camera perspective documents the workers in their factory surroundings including their break area and locker room. As a result, the film allows us to get to know each person a bit better thereby adding depth to each person’s personality. We understand their views and are not surprised to see them behave the way they do. Also, Wang Bing nicely places the camera either at table height or eye level, thereby giving the impression that the viewer is seated at a worker’s table or is standing in one corner of the room looking at the different people walking in and out.

Part II: Remnants moves the camera away from the factories into the workers’ residential quarters. Since the factories are in the process of going bankrupt and shutting down, the workers will have to be relocated as their factory provided houses will be torn down. Watching a neighbourhood in the process of destruction feels similar to Pedro Costa’s In Vanda’s Room which captures the demolition of the Fontainhas neighbourhood. The one difference between In Vanda’s Room and West of the Tracks is that while Costa confined himself mostly to just one room, Wang Bing wanders through multiple alleys and homes giving us a more complete picture and impact of the destruction. The segment also highlights how the lives of the workers’ children will be altered by the factory shutdowns.

Part III: Rail perfectly ties the film together with its comparatively brief two hour running time. The camera boards the railcars and records the workers that drive the trains to and from the factories. This perspective allows us to piece together all the lives that are dependent on the existence of the factories giving us a full sense of impact the plant shutdowns will have on the nearby surroundings.

Overall, this is a truly impressive debut film that works hard to give a complete picture of the factories and workers that once kept an economy moving. The film takes on a different meaning in 2020 when many industries have shutdown around the world and streets have emptied out. Aspects of this film including the stories of the workers can apply to other people around our planet who are impacted by the closing down of entire industries and factories.

Part I: Rust Part 1, Rust Part 2

Part II: Remnants

Part III: Rail

Five of Wang Bing’s films are available to watch via ovid.tv