`MARDI GRAS' SHOWS GRIM REALITY BEHIND THE PARTY.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

David Redmon's debut documentary, ``Mardi Gras: Made in China,'' doesn't expressly set out to shame Americans. But his portrait of the grim effects of globalization sure doesn't make you proud to wave the red, white and blue, and even manages to sober up a few Mardi Gras revelers in the process - no small trick, that.

Redmon's ambitions are modest. He wants to learn about all those brightly colored beads that have become a fixture in Mardi Gras celebrations. Where do they come from? Who makes them? Under what conditions? And, after finding the results, Redmon wants to ask the drunken masses congregating in New Orleans if these worthless strings of beads - the ones women flash their boobs for at a rate, the movie notes, of 2,000 breasts every three minutes - are worth the human sacrifice.

To accomplish this, Redmon made a couple of trips to rural China to the fenced-in compound of benevolent factory despot Roger Wong, who pays his employees (mostly teenage girls) 10 cents an hour to inhale toxic fumes and perform repetitive, finger-slicing tasks on shifts that range from 14 to 16 hours a day.

Wong likes to speak of how his employees enjoy their life in the compound, but this delusional man becomes most animated when speaking of the punishments he metes out to keep his workers churning out the requisite tons of beads per day. Those who talk while working are fined a day's pay. And if the daily quota isn't met, everyone loses a portion of the day's earnings.

The contrast between Wong's idea of a worker's paradise and actual life in the factory compound is great, but not as pronounced as the disparities between the Chinese girls making the beads and the young American women exposing themselves for them. When Redmon asks Mardi Gras revelers if they know where the beads come from, most profess their ignorance (``Don't know, don't care ... they're beads for boobs'') or demand to be kept in the dark, since too much information might spoil their good time.

Those partygoers who do look at Redmon's factory footage are immediately crestfallen. ``Now that you see what goes on ... it's not fun,'' one young woman says. Awareness often isn't.

Redmon isn't a killjoy. He just wants Americans to think about the origins of all their low-priced imports and factor that information into purchasing decisions. And, maybe, too, acknowledge their privileged status and realize that, with privilege, comes a certain responsibility.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA - Three stars

(Not rated: language, nudity)

Starring: Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster.

Director: David Redmon.

Running time: 1 hr. 15 min.

Playing: Laemmle Fairfax in Los Angeles.

In a nutshell: Mardi Gras revelers sober up (some of them, at least) when they learn where all those beads come from.

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Photo:

``Mardi Gras: Made in China'' looks at the workers who assemble the beaded necklaces thrown in New Orleans.