Directed by Hao Zhou, inside a Lenovo factory in Wuhan, workers navigate a controlled environment where surveillance, labour demands, and COVID protocols merge with global capitalism. A stark look at modern manufacturing and its human toll.
As you enter Factory you can quickly feel the sense of despair, abandonment and the feeling of being unmoored. We see these managers and executives scrambling to try and understand the constantly changing rules, trying to move forward but repeatedly hitting walls. It straight away throws up the question of what the balance is between getting the workers back into the factories and protecting their health. Interestingly, though it is a very capitalist environment, it doesn’t initially feel like they’re being entirely profit focused, although that definitely shifts as time goes on.
For probably nearly half of the film, Hao Zhou is exploring the obstacles of COVID, having them figure out not only how to get people back to work but how to work within the new protocols. It feels relatable as a lot of the world will have experienced, that it isn’t perfect, there’s the askew masks and people not adhering to distancing. It’s filled with frustration and endless bureaucracy, then as Factory moves forward, it begins to open up how little humanity there is to be found in the process. Watching how they operate hits these mechanical and arbitrary notes, with such strange boundaries.
It’s interesting to watch the process behind putting together the devices that we all use day to day but the micro-managing that goes into it is genuinely intense. It makes you wonder how anyone manages to work in that sort of environment, especially long term, and of course, it comes down to a simple lack of options. In that sense, it feels like it would have been of great benefit to Factory to spend more time with the lower level workers. The moments where we see their struggle and the monotonous, finickity nature of the work, as well as how they escape from it, are some of the strongest in the documentary.
Especially considering the runtime stretches to almost two and a half hours, it would have made the experience more satisfying to add those personal touches. As it stands, it’s overly long and struggles to hold your attention in the latter half of the film. Despite that there is a nicely growing tension in Factory’s later scenes, tapping into the frustrations of the underappreciated and under-compensated workers. There are also some heated moments which definitely add variety.
Factory ultimately feels like it wants to be a powerful exploration of how workers, especially hourly workers, are taken advantage of by gigantic corporations but it doesn’t quite get there. It always feels slightly on the side of the company, rather than railing for better working conditions. It’s interesting to see the inner workings, both in the context of the pandemic and in general but it stretches itself out too far and has lost steam by the time it reaches the end.
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