If
it is any consolation, life would probably be even harder for these two sets of
brothers if they were sisters instead, because that is how things are in China.
Life is a hardscrabble business in their rural village, but the promise of the
big city often gives way to bitter disappointment for migrant workers who try their
luck there. The young protagonists constantly grapple with their dashed “grass
is greener” hopes in Tianlin Xu’s Coming
and Going
(trailer here),
which screened at the 2016 Queens World Film Festival.
After
their father’s death left them orphans, teenagers Hai-cheng and Hai-long
essentially gave up on rural life. One now spends more time working short-term
jobs in the nearest city than he does in their home town. His brother will
probably follow his lead, once the harvest is finished.
Qiang
and Jun should be care-free pre-teens, but they are understandably concerned by
the long period without contact from their father, a migrant worker in the
city. For now, they board at the regional school and help their exhausted
grandparents in the fields. Even though they are still cared for, their father’s
absence weighs heavily on them.
There
have been many documentaries that have chronicled the plight of Communist China’s
swelling underclass, but Xu (pictured below) manages to make it fresh (and even more
tragic), through her cross-cutting of the four brothers’ stories. It becomes
achingly clear we are watching history repeat itself, not necessarily beat for
beat, but definitely in terms of the broad strokes.
Indeed,
we come to suspect the younger set of brothers will inevitably follow in the
older duo’s footsteps, eventually seeking employment in an urban industrial center.
However, from what we see in C&G,
they are most likely better off staying home. Migrant workers are typically
exploited by employers and targeted by criminals. In many cases, they are worse
off than when they left. As various extended family members argue, nobody
starves in the village.
Of
course, the easier subsistence living in the countryside is not a future. It is
a static life. So even knowing the possible hardships facing them, it is difficult
to blame the younger brothers for their eagerness to seek work in the big city.
C&G earns surprise style
points for Timon Wareczko’s evocative score and a rather poignant original
song. Xu’s approach is sensitive and disciplined, yet also strictly observational,
so she never has an opportunity to explain how China’s stringent Hukou
residency regulations exacerbate migrant workers’ perilous status, making them “undocumented
workers” in their own country.
