Have you ever fallen asleep at low tide, only to wake up to the drama of being surrounded by water? That was pretty much how I felt at the end of "Up the Yangtze," Yung Chang's requiem to a way of life in China during one of that country's regular massive acts of social engineering -- in this case, displacing 2 million people in the audacious Three Gorges Dam project.
The film is airing Wednesday on better PBS stations as part of the "P.O.V." series. (Clip below.)
"Up the Yangtze" follows a luxury ship of pleasure seekers as they take part in a "farewell cruise" to the lowlands of China before they are filled in with the rising Yangtze river as the dam is closed up. Yung's stroke of genius here is to also follow some of the workers on the cruise ship ... who, as it turns out, come from families being displaced by the river. It's beautifully filmed, but the stunner is how well Yung has "cast" his film, finding people both on and off the ship whose lives tell us plenty about China's astonishing transforming and how it's changing the lives of everyone there -- whether they like it or not.
One of those is a family that is poor beyond poor. They cannot send their eldest daughter to high school, as she would have wanted, but to work on the cruise ship. It is a decision she rues bitterly and things don't get any better on board the pleasure cruise, which is anything but for her. Yung actually records the moment when her family is forced to abandon their little hut on the Yangtze: your jaw will drop when you see the girl’s father strap the family’s wardrobe to his back and carry it up the steep side of the river.
Another of the workers is a comer named Jerry, who bows and scrapes and puts up with the tourists and their dumbass comments ("I congratulate you. You are less intrusive than I thought you would be," says a woman who then tips him a princely $30). As it turns out, he is fully aware of the abasement he is expected to perform, and this makes him a cynical and ultimately unreliable employee.
The tourists are tourists in "Up the Yangtze." What's worth seeing in this 90-minute film are the locals, and the complicated relationship they all have with change. It's a force too great for them to stop, even if they wanted to. And just because it might improve the fortunes of themselves and their families doesn't mean they welcome it.
It's a film lovely to behold, with long gazing shots of the river and its surroundings. But ultimately, it's a people film. "Up the Yangtze" has a very slow pacing to it, as we get to know the "cast" of subjects Yung has chosen to follow. (I wasn't surprised to learn in an interview that Robert Altman was an influence for Yung.) The film's final scene slowly reveals the effects of the flooding -- it's beautifully done so that the luxury ship appears to be passing through all three stages -- and ends with a solemn portrait of the family at river's edge, where just below the surface their former life way of life lies drowned.
one of the best documentaries this year..winner
of several awards.
its now out on DVD as well.
cbc newsworld showed this 6 months ago - they
helped produce it.
http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeyesunday/uptheyangtze/
heres an interview with the film maker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCTuorGUfvk
official website
http://www.uptheyangtze.com/index.php
IMDB - user reviews
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1114277/
Posted by: sanj | October 07, 2008 at 08:14 AM