In 2008, the GM plant was closed in Dayton, Ohio, USA. The creators of this documentary were among the witnesses of that event, Stephen Bogner and his wife Julia Rickert, who were not satisfied with filming outside the factory and meeting with the workers (currently layoffs), but they provided workers with small cameras to photograph the last cars on the production line before the closure.
The result was a short movie called "The Last Truck: closing the GM plant," and it was released in 2009, and was nominated as the Best Oscar at the time, this is not news, not even the end of the story.
After several years, the factory was purchased and reopened to return jobs that were lost, and that looks like the happiest ending, but the following Boognar and Rickert movie, American Factory, “On American Netflix,” clearly shows how that particular ending is not necessarily She is the happiest of the factory but she is also the movie maker.
This is what happens when the filmmaker is persevering and follows his story, not leaving it no matter how small, when Bougnard followed and ricked the story to its end, and a short film turned from 42 minutes to 110 minutes, he won the nomination for the best documentary in the last Oscar and won the award.
The factory bought a Chinese billionaire named Zhao Diwang in 2014, who chose to reopen it as a branch of his Chinese company, "Fuyao", which specializes in making auto glass. Based on the perception of Diwang, known in his group as President Zhao, the plan is to employ 2,000 local workers, meaning Americans, and to boost them with 200 workers from China to train their American counterparts.
While announcing his plans for the factory workers, Zhao talks about his hopes to change prejudiced or biased American ideas against China, and declares that he believes the two sides can work together and in perfect harmony. The first stage is bridging the cultural gap. We see Chinese workers enter courses to understand the American way of thinking and what motivates the American character at work.
For example, the Chinese report that the Americans are allowed to wear whatever they want and exchange jokes for anyone even if the president himself. Here, there is astonishment on the faces of the Chinese, who are accustomed to respecting their political symbols.
On the other hand, the Americans, some of whom were present in the pre-closure period, are informed that the new company will not differ much from the previous one, and that it is an American company heart and heart, and the change is only in the presence of Chinese workers supervising their American counterparts, and that their salaries will be cut in half, and They accepted this reduction as long as it was fixed and given the lack of alternative. Initially, things appear to be walking in the right direction, especially when prejudice, or prejudices on both sides of each other, decreases. The problem is that the differences between the two sides in relation to work culture are in their nature and cannot be ignored.
For example, Dewang discovers that the practical approach used in China differs radically from the American approach, and what made Fuyao a successful company in her hometown is the fact that the workers there work like robots, or gears in a machine, and not like humans. They work overtime, and on weekends if they are asked to do so, because what the employer requires there is mandatory, and safety rules at work are not followed by high standards, and this, according to Diwang, is a method that will not bear fruit in America.
In an attempt to bridge the gap, Dewang arranges a trip for US department heads at the factory to China, to familiarize themselves with the working system followed there, but department heads fail to convey what they learned for one logical reason: The Chinese work system is rooted in the Chinese character from cradle to grave, and the same thing For the American character accustomed to a business style protected by laws and contracts since the establishment of the state.
The Chinese complain that the American is lazy and does not work, and takes eight days a month as weekly vacations, as well as religious and political state holidays. The American complains that the Chinese never take leave and are not interested in seeing his family, and do not even take a rest at work, and this rest in particular is called by the Chinese at a time of unnecessary gossip. In a scene we see Dewang ordering to place a television in the rest area, and show Chinese children singing and praying, and we see an American employee saying: “We do not need to watch this, this is America.” Here is Dewang’s mistake which tried to use the innocence of children to impregnate or leak Chinese political propaganda to his American employees , Whose mentality and personality do not allow them to accept it.
Diwang is frustrated by the low production at his American factory, and American workers are frustrated by their low salaries and the many injuries in the factory, according to one of the injured, “He has not had a single injury for more than 10 years in the previous factory.” As a result, some American workers decide to vote to join. To the local trade union, a movement that angered Diwang, who threatened to shut down the factory and release everyone.
As in their past films, Bougnar and Rikert employ a quiet narrative style of their subject, meaning they let him reveal details naturally without filling him with political opinions, meaning that they avoid reporting to the viewer what he should feel. The first half of the film is as light as a comedy, and reflects the perfect harmony between the Chinese and American sides.
However, this soon changes when the film shifts from focusing on the cultural clash to the struggle to vote to join the trade union, especially when Zhao uses a consulting firm for a million dollars to give a lecture to American workers and explain the disadvantages of joining the union if they choose to vote for it. Here the film begins with a slightly dark tone when we see the factory management targeting the workers who choose to vote. The end is not happy, but as a story that started in 2008 and ended sadly after 10 years, it will be an integral part of the history of the American toiling movement, and it is extremely important, especially in the face of the challenges posed by industrial changes.
The end of the movie talks about the factories moving to the full mechanization stage by 2030, a topic that has hardly any connection with the material of the film, but the picture focuses on American and Chinese workers leaving their workplaces in America and China, and it suggests a revelation: Regardless of the strict Chinese and lenient American approaches, the The human being is the victim.
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The image focuses on the strict and lenient Chinese approach, and says: Man is the victim.
Bognard and Rickert employ a quiet style of their subject, meaning they let him reveal details naturally without filling him with political opinions, avoiding informing the viewer of what he should feel.