L’Argent du charbon

In Marx’s eyes, nothing was more deceptive than commodities. The obvious material appearance of an object concealed a social relationship, whose main characteristic was to appear to men in an inverse mode. If only due to the composition of his shots, in length and depth, Wang Bing is Marxist. At the wheel of their articulated trucks, the drivers that criss-cross China to supply the cities with coal seem to be the masters of their own destiny, triumphant figures of the self-employed entrepreneur. Yet their route is fraught with pitfalls: from dust on the mines’ service roads to the poor state of the highways, from transit taxes to the mercenary fines imposed by the police, from the price of petrol to the middle-man’s double game. Coal gold flows copiously, but always for other people. (Yann Lardeau)