After their 2009 Oscar-nominated documentary short The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant, Reichert and Bognar aimed to make a film that would depict what took place place in the same Moraine Assembly plant once occupied by General Motors. It was not until during the post-production process that the filmmakers decided to centralize the experiences of workers themselves during the Fuyao plant take-over, which they describe as the "beating heart of the story". In February 2015, principal photography commenced, and wrapped in late 2017. Fuyao granted Reichert and Bognar access to both their Dayton, Ohio and Chinese plant locations. The filmmakers implemented a fly-on-the-wall documentary filmmaking approach, in which no dialogue external to the subjects of the film is included, and the sounds of the factory and the dialogue of the workers is prioritized. In order to make focal such an audio/visual approach, the filmmakers implemented the use of lavalier microphones to effectively balance worker dialogue amid noise emanating from the factory's machinery. The voice-over narration provided by the factory workers was often recorded at their respective homes, independently from the factory setting. According to Bognar, implementing the film's narration in this way to create an effect of depicting a worker's inner monologue. Chinese filmmakers, Yiqian Zhang and Mijie Li, facilitated the Mandarin Chinese language portions of the film, with one or both of whom would travel to Ohio monthly. The directors credit these two as essential in providing a connection to the Chinese subjects depicted in the film.
Bognar and Reichert's film is intelligent, in-depth, and touching, all executed with a gripping hands-on approach to the material that helps engage the audience more than you're standard talking heads documentary. The film rails against corporate greed and asks what happened to the American Dream and its promise of middle-class prosperity. The film itself remains a hard kick in the head-a funny, angry inquiry into what the hell happened to the American dream. Despite some tempering with the chronological sequence of events, this is a scathingly biting satire of modern economics that captures the zeitgeist of the late 2010s and early 2020s much more poignantly than most Hollywood movies. Regardless of Bognar and Reichert's conceitedness and simple-mindedness, they still made a good movie, and without inventing so many facts as they did with A Lion in the House and The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant. The film demonstrates that this genre can be as hilarious as any comedy on the market and provide some sharp political muckraking to boot. The film is an inventive, darkly comic, and prophetic documentary about corporate America and unemployement. Though much of what's in the film isn't new information, seeing it all compiled in one place and building to its damning argument against Bognar and Reichert is effective and disturbing.
Bognar and Reichert's film is intelligent, in-depth, and touching, all executed with a gripping hands-on approach to the material that helps engage the audience more than you're standard talking heads documentary. The film rails against corporate greed and asks what happened to the American Dream and its promise of middle-class prosperity. The film itself remains a hard kick in the head-a funny, angry inquiry into what the hell happened to the American dream. Despite some tempering with the chronological sequence of events, this is a scathingly biting satire of modern economics that captures the zeitgeist of the late 2010s and early 2020s much more poignantly than most Hollywood movies. Regardless of Bognar and Reichert's conceitedness and simple-mindedness, they still made a good movie, and without inventing so many facts as they did with A Lion in the House and The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant. The film demonstrates that this genre can be as hilarious as any comedy on the market and provide some sharp political muckraking to boot. The film is an inventive, darkly comic, and prophetic documentary about corporate America and unemployement. Though much of what's in the film isn't new information, seeing it all compiled in one place and building to its damning argument against Bognar and Reichert is effective and disturbing.
Simon says American Factory receives:
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