Useless

In Useless, Jia Zhangke traces the human cost of China’s industrial transformation through the world of clothing. He begins in the garment factories of Guangdong, where workers toil over sewing machines for little pay, before shifting to Paris, where haute couture designer Ma Ke presents her handmade collection Wu Yong (‘useless’), conceived in defiance of mass production. The documentary’s final movement returns to Jia’s native Shanxi, where a tailor reflects on abandoning his fading trade for the coal mines. Moving with quiet precision between workshop, runway and rural town, Jia creates a subtle and humanistic portrait of labour, class and the widening distance between tradition and modernity.