Sadly Over-hyped

Pretty Good

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The movie was shown at our school just two Thursdays ago, May 14th, to kick off the Southwest Labor Studies Association's 35th Annual Conference with this year's theme revolving around the Labor's Role at the Grassroots Level. The director, Micha Peled, was there to watch it with us and to discuss it afterwords. The clip that you saw at Columbia University was about a girl in a sweat shop making clothes, yes, but her name was not Jasmine. Here's the thing, Micha Peled would send clips back to the use for editing during his first unlicensed filming in China. Him and his crew were finishing up the making of this film "a couple of years ago" and went to this girl's house (I think her name meant Little Fish) to finish up the final scenes, but they were caught by the Chinese police and all of their film was confiscated and his crew was thrown in jail. Therefore, they had to start from scratch, in a whole new factory, with different characters, dodging and ducking police even more so than before. This non-fictional documentary is incredibly eye opening and gives faces to the trials and tribulations of the Chinese sweat shop workers. You should feel ridiculous for not doing your research.

Initially, when I saw China Blue, I was impressed with the filmmaker's access to the factory and the young girls who worked there. I was terribly moved by the plight of these young women and I still am but for a very different reason. When I had the chance to meet with the director, Micha Peled, at this year's INPUT, an int'l public TV conference, in Lugano, where he showcased Chinca Blue, I learned that he staged many of the scenes and wrote the script for the subtitles. In fact, I understand there are subtle nuances with some of the Chinese spoken by the character, Jasmine, and if you listen very carefully, at times, the voices are also slightly different. Lastly, I learned that the girls were paid a pittance, not for their time, but to act out their stories. That is why if you inquire about the girls' whereabouts in this day, the answer is that contact was lost with them. How do I know all of this? Well, the filmmaker was quite proud and he bragged of his deception. If anything, I would be interested in the expose of this documentary and maybe this director's previous films -- that is where the true story lies -- no pun intended.

This movie made me reflect for the first time in my life who are the people making the clothes that I and my family wears. My daughter was so moved that she went home and threw out of her wardrobe everything with a "Made in China" label. Now she wants to write a letter back to Jasmine, the heroine of the movie.If all teenagers see this movie something will change in the whole globalization/outsourcing system.After reading in the end credits that the film crew was arrested in China while shooting this movie I am wondering what else is going on in China that we don't know about. You keep hearing the media about human rights abuse in China, but I've always thought it was only done to individuals who dare to protest. This film shows it's systematic and millions of people suffer as a result.

What I loved most about this movie was the diversity and balance of its coverage -- from the issues of globalization, labor laws, and the impacts of rampant consumerism to the colors and flavors of Chinese culture, family issues, relationships, and the ups and downs of life. This is a very rare glimpse into the lives of young women working in a jeans making factory. The filmmaker does an excellent job conveying their exhaustion and the pressure to keep up with production. The viewer can feel their pain. Through it, one sees the need to improve labor conditions not only in China, but in other parts of the world where such demands on workers are unfair and inhumane. It definitely makes one think about where their jeans came from, and where we're going in a world that allows such wonderful young women to work under such horrible circumstances.