Aug. 20--A documentary about train travel in China, "The Iron Ministry" at Facets this week unspools as an impressionistic collage of sounds and images, plunging you into the middle of these (often overcrowded) railroad cars. There is a distinctly social component to train life in China, one that is so unlike our habits in the U.S. that I feel compelled to begin with an anecdote.
An alarming commute home last week jolted me out of my mental solitude as our bus driver nearly caused a collision. My fellow riders and I looked at one another, eyes wide, and shared a long, horrified laugh, and it was the first time we really even acknowledged the presence of one another. "What, you didn't want to die today?" someone joked as I got up and stepped off the bus carrying a weird feeling of solidarity and, strange to say it, joy. I had a smile on my face because of that brief but intense moment of bonding. It felt good to connect with these strangers. And I normally hate that sort of thing.
These momentary -- what shall we call them, pop-up friendships? -- aren't unusual on Chinese trains. Watching director J.P. Sniadecki's documentary, which he filmed over a three year period starting in 2010, I wondered how open we Americans would be to this kind of forced social contact.
Though China has a number of high-speed lines, the bulk of Sniadecki's footage captures a far less orderly experience. On most of his trips, people are crammed together for hours on end. On a certain commuter train line, men and women transport food in wicker baskets and once aboard they simply spread out on the floor, prepping their meat or produce to take to market. Consider that the next time you recoil from a person eating something odorous on your bus or train.
"What was fascinating to me was how people make it through these long trips together," said Sniadecki, who moves to Chicago next month to begin teaching at Northwestern University's new documentary MFA program.
"You have complete strangers falling asleep on each other's shoulders, people finding ways to make conversation and become drinking buddies for 50 hours. You become fast friends. People are really packed together and sometimes they're a little annoyed with each other, but there's not as much a sense of personal space and I only saw one instance where it almost seemed like there was going to be a physical fight."
The film captures moments -- a discussion about politics and Chinese Muslims, or abstract images such as a line of oscillating fans affixed to a train ceiling -- but provides no commentary or information about the trains or where they're going. It is not a film for all tastes. It focuses on the sensory experience of these trains and takes its time exploring the nooks and crannies. Each scene feels like a continuation of the next -- a never-ending journey that is both claustrophobic but entirely watchable, particularly a scene in which the camera follows a man through a long crowded aisle, pushing a cart loaded with packets of sunflower seeds and peanuts and porridge for sale.
Train travel, Sniadecki told me, "was my primary classroom and where I really learned the language. And like a lot of Chinese, it was my primary means of moving around the country. It's an integral part of the fabric of life there. You might be going 20 minutes to a nearby city, or one time I took a 72-hour train trip on a hard seat train." No cushions, no arm rests, just a hard bench. For 72 hours.
At one point, Sniadecki films a pair of men sharing a meal of barbecue and some sort of liquor. "Have some more booze!" one of them says to Sniadecki (who we never see) handing him the bottle. "Have another sip!" The man then turns to a woman sitting nearby and offers a capful.
"If I drink my stomach will make that 'gunk gunk' sound," comes the reply. "I still haven't recovered from yesterday's drinking!"
"It'll go down really smooth," the man promises as she relents, downs the shot and then looks at the camera and laughs.
Most trains have assigned seats. But according to Sniadecki, "They also sell so many tickets to people who don't have seats ... I remember falling asleep on a hard seat train and waking up at three in the morning and looking up and seeing a woman with a baby just standing there and I was like, 'Oh man, I have to give this seat to her big time.' But that's how these trains operate."
I asked if he was allowed to film unfettered, without coming to the attention of Chinese officials.
"Every train I was on, I was stopped from filming. I'm not really into the hidden camera thing -- although I did film people sleeping so there is some of that, I guess -- but I would pull out the camera and shoot and then invariably a worker or a train chief would tell me I can't film on the train. Sometimes it was polite, sometimes more aggressive ... There's such a fear, paranoia and anxiety about official representation in China."
His fellow passengers, though, were mostly intrigued.
"Every train you walk into is its own small little temporary community that's constantly shifting because people are getting on and off the train. So I had to do a lot explaining, a lot of talking, a lot of introducing myself to people and answering a lot of the same questions." Passengers were curious about who he was, this American traveling alone through China. "It would be anthropology for them. They would ask me how much a house costs in the United States and how many children you can have."
The film ends with much quieter scenes in the high-speed trains, which more closely resemble American plane travel. In the hushed cars with their plush seats, passengers sit spread out, focused on the screens in their hands, mentally walled off from those around them. After all the ramshackle chaos of the film's earlier portions, these scenes feel like both a relief and a letdown. Not as stressful, but also not as fun.
"Well, that high-speed environment could very well be the future of train travel in China," Sniadecki said. "Less of sharing a drink and more looking at your gadgets." Welcome to modernity.
"The Iron Ministry" screens at Facets through Thursday. Go to facets.org.
nmetz@tribpub.com
