A Yangtze Landscape
Non Members:$4.99
Release Date
01 March 2017
01 March 2017
Story:
In 2012, the director of the drama "Chang Jiang Tu (Crosscurrent)", Yang Chao, invited me to follow up on their production team and independently create a documentary about the Yangtze. I was born by the lower Yangtze River in Taizhou City, so I've had a deep impression of the Yangtze from the time I was a boy. What's more, government officials after '49 were always calling her the Mother River in their propaganda, and today, along with China's irrational development, the Yangtze's cultural figures and ecosystem have suffered grave destruction. This documentary utilizes the "Yangtze" as a metaphor of the current chaos in China. The film crew rented a few boats and I went along with it, setting off from the Yangtze's marine port Shanghai, passing Nanjing, Wuhan, the massive Three Gorges Dam, and Chongqing, filming all the way to the upper Yangtze Yibin, then crossing over dry land from Yibin to the Yangtze River's source, Qinghai/Tibet - filming a total distance of thousands of kilometers. The documentary utilizes a non-narrative style, and there is almost no dialog in the entire film. Mounting the camera on the boat and using the boat as its tripod - using the Yangtze River as a huge moving camera track, extensive use of long and fixed lenses is made as simple, calm observation accompanies as the camera pans over the riverscape. We film the two prosperous sides of the Shanghai Huangpu River, a bum in front of a demolished apartment building's ruins at a riverside stop in Tongling, a day in the life of a mental patient's family at Datong old village stop, an old man at Wuhan stop whose hands were destroyed for impeding a Yangtze River dredging vessel and who'd petitioned in Beijing seventeen times, the thrilling passage through the Three Gorges Dam ship lock, a mentally-ill homeless person at Jinzhou stop, a vagabond living under a bridge at Chongqing stop, a pious Buddhist in Tibet...The film also features some shots from the drama "A Yangtze Portrait". Experimental music and noise recorded live on scene were used in post-production, painstakingly paired with relatively independent visuals, creating a magically realistic atmosphere contrasted with people seeming to be "decorative figures" right out of traditional Chinese landscape scrolls. After watching the whole film, you realize that it's a dead Yangtze, and that it's none other than a portrayal of today's China.
In 2012, the director of the drama "Chang Jiang Tu (Crosscurrent)", Yang Chao, invited me to follow up on their production team and independently create a documentary about the Yangtze. I was born by the lower Yangtze River in Taizhou City, so I've had a deep impression of the Yangtze from the time I was a boy. What's more, government officials after '49 were always calling her the Mother River in their propaganda, and today, along with China's irrational development, the Yangtze's cultural figures and ecosystem have suffered grave destruction. This documentary utilizes the "Yangtze" as a metaphor of the current chaos in China. The film crew rented a few boats and I went along with it, setting off from the Yangtze's marine port Shanghai, passing Nanjing, Wuhan, the massive Three Gorges Dam, and Chongqing, filming all the way to the upper Yangtze Yibin, then crossing over dry land from Yibin to the Yangtze River's source, Qinghai/Tibet - filming a total distance of thousands of kilometers. The documentary utilizes a non-narrative style, and there is almost no dialog in the entire film. Mounting the camera on the boat and using the boat as its tripod - using the Yangtze River as a huge moving camera track, extensive use of long and fixed lenses is made as simple, calm observation accompanies as the camera pans over the riverscape. We film the two prosperous sides of the Shanghai Huangpu River, a bum in front of a demolished apartment building's ruins at a riverside stop in Tongling, a day in the life of a mental patient's family at Datong old village stop, an old man at Wuhan stop whose hands were destroyed for impeding a Yangtze River dredging vessel and who'd petitioned in Beijing seventeen times, the thrilling passage through the Three Gorges Dam ship lock, a mentally-ill homeless person at Jinzhou stop, a vagabond living under a bridge at Chongqing stop, a pious Buddhist in Tibet...The film also features some shots from the drama "A Yangtze Portrait". Experimental music and noise recorded live on scene were used in post-production, painstakingly paired with relatively independent visuals, creating a magically realistic atmosphere contrasted with people seeming to be "decorative figures" right out of traditional Chinese landscape scrolls. After watching the whole film, you realize that it's a dead Yangtze, and that it's none other than a portrayal of today's China.
Cast
XU Xin
Director
Director :
Xu Xin
Runtime :
156mins
Language :
Mandarin wiht English subtitle
Reference :
Bloghttps://cathayplay.com/en/blog/a-yangtze-landscape
Cast
XU Xin
Director
