American Factory Analysis

American Factory (2019)

Directed and Produced by: Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert

Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature 2020

Available on Netflix.

American Factory is a documentary about a Chinese billionaire who opens a factory near Ohio and employs two thousand Americans and the film is about the setbacks the workforce face and essentially it is about the concerns raised for employment due to automation. It is the first film produced by Barack and Michelle Obama's production company, Higher Ground Productions. This documentary adapts a 'fly-on-the-wall' style of film making where they just shoot and observe like how a fly would about what's going on there and we don't see interviews of anyone. The editing of the film doesn't cut quick for the audience to be hooked because of the change in setting and imagery, for instance they hold static shots of the locations before slowly entering in. The pacing almost felt similar to the last year's Academy Award winning documentary Free Solo, although that was an edge of the seat experience because of the subject matter.

The film deals with themes like work life balance, cultural differences and about how people will find it difficult to find work because of automation in a decade. The best part about the documentary is that the film makers don't express their political view in the documentary but it is clear by the events they choose to show and the voices they choose to capture. This is a more subtle way of doing things by respecting the audience and is way better than doing a simple propaganda video. Ram Ke Naam by Anand Patwardhan was also a good example of this, the filmmaker's view and opinion is never explicitly spoken but it is clearly visible throughout. 

The main cultural conflict they face is the work-life balance, the Chinese people work for twelve hours a shift and take 2-3 days off a month whereas the Americans work for eight hours a day and take the weekends off. They say that in China they want people to work hard enough that they should feel that they deserve the salary and whereas in America there is minimum basic wages for everyone. The chairman motivates the Chinese people by saying things like we're born in China and we've Chinese blood and we're born from Chinese mother's, everything of what he said come from the ideas of nationalism, honor, pride and to an extent even masculinity. When the workers want to opt for a union, the chairman says that he'll shutdown if a union starts because of course they he can't rule them. The documentary also raises concerns on automation which will lead to the loss of many jobs, although it didn't explore much of it and it just briefly showed what possible consequences that can bring.