Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (2002) User Reviews

Almost record my father's whole life

[frodohanks1986 · 10/10 · 22 October 2018]

I was born and raised up in Tie Xi, the industry zone in ShenYang city, Liao Ning, China. My father is a Central heating system engineer(Nuan Qi), which is an unique steam heating system in North China. He is one of the engineer works on the land of YanFen, the area in part three of the movie. For the rebuild of that area. This film record almost the whole life of the people like father's age in TieXi. Even though Yanfen and factory already rebuild or move to urban area, I still can remember some of them. Thanks to the staff of this film, this is a gift especial for the people born after the Industry era of Shenyang.

Truly unique film experience

[heptaparaparshinokh · 10/10 · 2 February 2005]

It's difficult to write about this film, largely because it's a ten (is that right?) hour film if you watch the three parts as a whole, which is how I saw it - and how I recommend you to watch it. It's also difficult for me to write about it because it's been over a year since I watched the film at at the Vancouver film festival. When I saw that nobody's written a review I was kind of shocked, so I'll do my best to give readers an idea of what this film is about, as I'm sure there's more than few people who are curious about this ambitious, epic documentary. Over the course of the film, you'll encounter a very diverse and interesting group of people living through an extremely difficult point in the history of their district. I remember certain moments in the movie that really hit me hard, after being slowly built up by the slower, but not less interesting scenes that preceded them. The images gave a very objective feeling to me - the camera seemed to be this invisible object moving around within this environment and circumstances with brutal clarity and without any obvious opinion. The cinematography was great, capturing the bleak world of this industrial based community, and showing how its inhabitants transcend the bleakness through various means. Again, it's difficult to know what to say - I'd really like to watch it again - but it stood out to me as being a very important, although sometimes difficult, work of documentary art. If you get a chance, you should check this one out. When is it coming out on DVD? Criterion may want to take a look at releasing in in North America.

One of the better documentaries I've seen

[Kai-76-181320 · 10/10 · 26 April 2022]

I really enjoyed watching this. The rawness and the honesty of the entire 3 part movie were both happy and sad. You can't help feeling for all the characters, regardless of them being interviewed or not. Everything is brutally straight forward. I recommend this to anyone wanting to see something different than your usual documentary. It might be long but it's well worth the watch.