Most people (filmmakers, too!) would imagine the rising waters behind a new dam only for how they cover things up. Not so Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke, who uses the altering landscape of Three Gorges Dam in Southern China’s Fengjie county for uncovering the lives of people connected to the project, revealing personal burdens alongside societal upheaval. Working in a style both precise and opaque, this Venice Film Fest winner (among many awards) observes with little comment two estranged couples handling the aftermath of long separation and the possibilities of reuniting; the dam acting as catalyst. Sixteen years apart for a laborer, recently returned from the coal mines to begin a lower paying demolition job, taking down partially ruined buildings, in hopes of finding the wife and daughter he left behind for better coal mining wages. Further up the social scale, a building engineer avoids calls from the wife he’s had no contact with in two years. What could she wants of him? Some things in here can be tough for Western audiences to fathom: Chinese emotional reserve can appear a closed book, with stoic acceptance coming across as a lack of feeling. But Jia Zhang-ke locates plenty of depth, laying out what we need to reach third act resolution with his rapt attention to detail and handsome visual coverage juxtaposing the modern city just to the right of the watery ghost town these people labor in. Yet fine as this is, with so much held at arm’s length, formal design may only carry you so far. Especially once the film’s liveliest character tragically leaves the scene.
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