The Boston Phoenix

Micha Peled’s film documents his heartbreaking, unforgettable cinéma-vérité stay with two teenage girls employed in a Chinese blue-jean factory. It’s even worse than the news stories would have you believe, the exploitation, the degradation, and the downright slavery of millions of Chinese peasants who’ve traveled to the cities looking for work. Seventeen-hour days are “normal,” toiling seven days a week is “normal,” being fined several days’ salary for leaving the factory dormitory and visiting the town is “normal,” not getting paid at all is “normal.” Peled, an Israeli who lives in San Francisco, spent several months with his two girls, even filming the day that the factory workers threatened a strike (illegal in China) after no one had been paid a cent in months. Victory! Wal-Mart got its jeans! The workers got their salaries, about 12 cents an hour! This is globalization, the free trade endorsed in America by both Republicans and Democrats.