Obedience is an insightful look at the lives of elderly in Hong Kong who collect garbage for a living. Though somewhat editorialized, viewers come away from the documentary with a sense of the daily struggles of such individuals, particularly at a time when their livelihoods are more threatened than ever.
In particular, Obedience makes a strong artistic statement with initial depictions of religious festivals that are then juxtaposed with the humdrum lives of elderly garbage collectors. The monotony of collecting garbage day in and day out, weaving through the urban traffic in Hong Kong, is evocative.
Even if it does editorialize in this way, Obedience does not cast its subjects in a sentimental light either. Elderly garbage collectors are depicted as caring for their families, while navigating the social dynamics of other garbage collectors who they are sometimes in competition with.
One especially striking sequence shows younger garbage collectors helping out their parents, followed by a group of garbage collectors discussing how other garbage collectors sometimes react with envy at those who are helped by their children. What Obedience does well is to show that elderly garbage collectors not only see their activities as work, but also see garbage collecting as a social sphere.
Obedience’s filmmakers could have easily depicted their subjects as poor, downtrodden individuals, and thus shot the documentary in a manner that aims to elicit mawkish sympathy. Instead, one comes away with both a sense of the subject’s agency, and the limitations of this agency in the face of a society that looks down on those that collect garbage for a living.
It is a testament to the documentary’s maturity that any overly sympathetic approach is eschewed in favor of a fly-on-the-wall lens. Yet one finds a quiet poetry in the lives of Hong Kong’s garbage collectors, as drawn about by Obedience’s shooting style. This is accomplished without overly aestheticizing the lives of such individuals as well.
If there is a weakness to Obedience, it may be that it refuses to focus on any individual garbage collector; instead, the film presents garbage collectors as an ensemble collective. As such, some viewers may find it somewhat challenging to follow the film’s depictions of garbage collectors without a specific entry point. Either way, Obedience proves an insightful look at a facet of Hong Kong society that otherwise blends into everyday life.
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Obedience (Chinese: 十方之地)—Hong Kong. Dialog in Cantonese. Directed by Wong Siu-pong. Running time 1hr 11min. First released January 29, 2024 at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
This article is part of our dedicated coverage of the 2025 Alula Film Festival.
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