After watching it, I was sure it would be the powerful documentary For Sama that would win the big prize at the Academy Awards, so I was shocked that it went to this film, produced by Netflix, but I was hoping it was a worthy winner when I watched it. Basically, it is about a factory in Moraine, a city near Dayton, in post-industrial Ohio. There, a shutdown General Motors Company plant is bought and reopened by Chinese entrepreneur and billionaire chairman Cao Dewang. The factory is transformed into a state-of-the-art glass-making facility, providing employment and hope for the former workforce, made up of two thousand Americans, and the many Chinese employees. Early days of hope and optimism slowly turns sour, as high-tech China clashes with working-class America. The friction mainly occurs between efficiency-driven management and safety-conscious American workers, and arguments between disgruntled workers about 12-hour shifts, no weekends off, no chit-chat and no union representation. Eventually many workers are let go and replaced by advanced high-tech machinery. This film really points out the increasingly subject to automation and globalisation. More than anything this film is a culture clash story, with everything from what happens in the workplace, including the interesting sights of glass being manufactured, to company gatherings, including a memorable sequence with the Chinese doing traditional colourful dance performances and the Americans keeping it simple and jolly with the "YMCA". I agree that it is a little longer than it perhaps should be, the fly-on-the-wall style is interesting, although you question the realism in certain moments. This is nowhere near as gripping or powerful as For Sama, so I am a little disappointed that this claimed (stole) the award, but this is a reasonably good documentary. It won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature Film. Worth watching, in my opinion!
Review of American Factory
