digital / color / 156min. / 2017 / China
This documentary uses the “Yangtze” as a metaphor of the current chaos in China. It utilizes a non-narrative style, setting off from Shanghai, passing the massive Three Gorges Dam, filming all the way to the Yangtze River’s source, Qinghai/Tibet. Experimental music and noise recorded live on sitewere used, creating a magically realistic atmosphere contrasted with people seeming to be “decorative figures” right out of traditional Chinese landscape scrolls.(X.X.)
The Yangtze is the longest river in China. This documentary is composed of black and white footage of riverside scenery taken along a 2,800 kilometer route that begins in Shanghai and passes through Nanjing, the Three Gorges Dam, and Chongqing before arriving in Yibin, Sichuan Province. It follows someone quietly observing various scenes, such as Bureau of Justice slogans displayed in lights on buildings in Shanghai’s “Bund” district and homeless people and devastated landscapes seen beside the river, as metaphors for modern Chinese society. (M.K.)