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| Director Jia Zhang-ke |
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| Jia with Zhao Tao |
CAUGHT BY THE TIDES (Feng liu yi dai) A- China (111 mi) 2024 d: Jia Zhang-ke
Not even a wildfire can burn all the weeds, they will grow back in the spring breeze. —Underground, by Brain Failure, 野火 YouTube (46 seconds)
From the director of PLATFORM (2000), UNKNOWN PLEASURES (2002), THE WORLD (2004), Still Life (Sanxia haoren) (2006), 2020 Top Ten List #4 I Wish I Knew (Hai shang chuan qi) (2010), 2013 Top Ten List #3 A Touch of Sin (Tian zhu ding), 2015 Top Ten List #2 Mountains May Depart (Shan he gu ren), Ash Is Purest White (Jiang hu er nv) (2018), and 2020 Top Ten List #8 Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue (Yi zhi you dao hai shui bian lan), Jia Zhang-ke, who makes an acting appearance in Guan Hu’s Black Dog (Gou zhen) (2024), is one of the better chroniclers of our times, where his films play out like existential essays that capture what is so essential about living through the different waves of change through China today. His sixth film to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was completely overlooked and often misunderstood by critics, it is essentially a Covid pandemic film, where filming in China was particularly difficult, leaving the director with some time on his hands, so Jia, with the help of 3 editors, brilliantly weaves together footage he had filmed over the past two or three decades, some of which was originally filmed without any specific purpose, where he ended up experimenting with diverse filming techniques rather than capturing specific scenes, creating an abstract, freeform collage that can be formally challenging to watch, more of a musical, architectural, and social kaleidoscope than a recognizable narrative, quickly realizing this could be the basis for a new film. Like the cinematic essays from Chris Marker or Adam Curtis, considered provocative cinema due to its intellectual inaccessibility for most viewers, Jia uses impressionistic images and sensations of the past to maneuver through space and time, across a spectrum of people and places to meditate on intersecting ideas of history and memory, tradition and modernity, and also reality and art, which is something of a reflection on Susan Sontag’s nature of photography (On Photography) which suggests that images shape perception, mediate experience, while influencing our relationship with the world, where this turns out to be his most innovative depiction of 21st century China to date. At the heart of the film is an undying love that spans decades, through different cities and changing careers, showcasing a collection of meetings and departures through the years, where they always manage to find a way back to each other. Approximately 10 scenes from the film have appeared in Jia’s previous films, including footage and outtakes from UNKNOWN PLEASURES (2002), Still Life (Sanxia haoren) (2006) and Ash Is Purest White (Jiang hu er nv) (2018), which was itself a twenty-year journey through the fast-changing landscape, yet both of those later films share the same time frames and settings, as well as familiar characters and thematic content, so the use of new footage allows the filmmaker to radically alter the context.
The common denominator in all these films is the presence of actress Zhao Tao, the director’s wife, a graduate of the Department of Chinese Folk Dance at the Beijing Dance Academy, where someone needs to just come out and acknowledge that she is one of the great screen actresses of our time, possessing an indomitable spirit that burns with subtle brilliance, wit, and the ferociousness of an independent woman whose steps are haunted by the barely recognizable yet everchanging landscape around her, where her presence here is completely captivating. Reminiscent of the deeply personal working relationship between John Cassavetes and his wife, actress Gena Rowlands, both directors made a comparable number of films together starring their wives, maybe 7 or 8 films, where that work is easily the best in their respective careers, where the intimacy factor captured onscreen is simply astonishing. A portrait of a women’s growth, awakening, and evolution, part of the “change generation,” where the Covid pandemic woke China’s young people up to the reality that their society is oriented to the values and priorities of the elderly, whose patriarchal, Confucian-influenced truths are very different from their own, yet what stands out in this film is that Zhao Tao never utters a single word in the entire film, though she does sing a song, representing a sector of society that has experienced very rapid changes over several decades, experiencing joy, anger, sorrow, regret, and happiness, and while her performance is completely minimalistic, it’s also amazingly powerful. Spanning more than 20 years of her career, the Cannes screening reduced her to tears as the credits rolled, as her gestures, movements, and facial expressions are simply unforgettable, even through an N95 mask at the end of the film that covers most of her face, arguably the only actress seen so far who has been able to transcend those limitations, offering what is perhaps the performance of her lifetime, something completely missed by the Cannes jury. Unexpected events crop up one after another, yet she carries the picture as she wanders through different time periods in this sprawling yet ruminative journey haunted by history, kind of a reflection on the director's work, yet realized through her eyes. What we quickly understand is that as the landscape changes so quickly, feelings change as well, creating a roller-coaster social environment which can leave us with an overwhelming sense of melancholy at having survived such a momentous ordeal, which is exactly what Jia’s films are about, where time, distance, and memories are intertwined, always wondering how we can find the truth from the fictionality of the film, offering a deep sense of loneliness, nostalgia, and disillusionment, leaving a profound imprint in the viewer’s imaginations.
Opening on the side of the road, an unnamed man stands before a burning fire as a punk song from the early 2000’s rages, Underground (though the literal translation is Wildfire), by Brain Failure, 野火 YouTube (46 seconds). Literally immersed in the Jia ethos that connects all his films together, this quickly segues to local women huddled around a stove singing love songs and workers’ traditional songs on International Women’s Day, while a sequence in the deteriorated Workers’ Cultural Palace signals the abandonment of Mao Zedong-era Communist traditions, though it remains a welcoming place for pensioners who no longer know what to do with their time, expressing a longing for nostalgia, bringing back collective memories in a film that finds a unique balance between documentary and fiction. Qiao Qiao (Zhao Tao) and Guo Bin (Li Zhubin) are the same names of the couple in Ash Is Purest White (Jiang hu er nv), though they are originally connected back to UNKNOWN PLEASURES (2002) where the characters first appeared, a jarring film shot in just 19 days that captures a new generation of Chinese youth, kids who had grown up completely in the post-Cultural Revolution era when China was rapidly modernizing, and, to some extent, Westernizing, while Still Life (Sanxia haoren) (2006) continues the story of those left behind by a rapidly transforming Chinese society. Jia and his co-writer Wan Jiahuan, who also collaborated on 2020 Top Ten List #8 Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue (Yi zhi you dao hai shui bian lan), have stitched together a new story set in four different time periods, 2001, 2006, 2017, and then 2022, which is only possible because Zhao Tao has starred in almost all his films, while four also feature Li Zhubin. Living together in the northern Chinese city of Datong in 2001, known as a coal mining city, she is a singer, dancer, model, and club girl working for her manager and romantic partner Bin, often in front of the miners who still have their faces caked in coal dust, singing operas, pop songs, and performing choreographed dances. Like the abstract opening dance sequence of David Lynch’s MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001), Mulholland Drive (2001) - Opening dance number YouTube (1:30), Jia similarly composes an ode to physicality in which songs of different styles overlap, with overcrowded nightclubs bathed in music from the West, where the collection of bodies establishes a dialogue with life through the playful and liberating experience of the dance, viewed as an exercise of freedom. Capturing the exuberance of the singing crowds, there’s a kind of underplayed aspect to the overall performances, which rarely feel spontaneous, yet Qiao Qiao is completely captivating, as if lost in her own world, feeding off the frenetic energy of the music, providing some semblance of entertainment in a working class town bereft of any kind of meaningful cultural identity, 風流一代| 個瞬間似乎既是往昔重現也是過去不再可及的黯然 ... YouTube (6:07).
Offering a sense of vibrancy in otherwise dreary and lonely landscapes, these sequences arouse the hopes and dreams of youth facing the harsh realities of capitalism during the approaching millennium, while also providing insight into small town culture and what this means to them. When a bunch of rebellious punks surround Qiao Qiao on the street with their motorbikes, she easily dissipates their threatening harassment by more than holding her own, walking away unscathed while they’re left scratching their heads in complete surprise. But their fragile relationship turns cold, growing miserable and oppressive, alternating between fleeting encounters and painful separations, best exemplified by an unforgettable scene inside a bus, playing out in its entirety from UNKNOWN PLEASURES, where Bin repeatedly pushes her back, like a dozen times, blocking her attempt to escape out the door, yet she persists until he finally allows her to pass. Growing increasingly frustrated, Bin sets off to earn a living in a distant province, sending her a text that he’ll send for her once he’s settled, but she never hears from him, as he ignores all her messages. One thing that stands out in Jia’s early films is his use of diegetic sound designs that allow the noise of everyday life to effectively act as a score, while he also gets compelling performances from non-professional actors, which add an element of hyper-realistic exhilaration. Jia, one of the most uncompromising and influential filmmakers of his generation, founder of the Pingyao International Film Festival in 2017 to promote diversity of Chinese cinema (The Other Side of Hope: Jia Zhangke and the Pingyao ...), while supporting younger filmmakers through his production company Xstream Pictures, is able to remix old footage into this new film to create an epic adventure story by following a lone woman making her way through the ever-shifting tides of time. The music is from Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Taiwanese musical composer Lim Giong, who already worked with Jia in THE WORLD (2004), Still Life (Sanxia haoren) (2006) and 2013 Top Ten List #3 A Touch of Sin (Tian zhu ding), providing a window into the lives of the characters, where this is easily Jia’s most musical film yet, becoming the emotional heart and soul of the picture, exuding an air of post-millennial optimism. His electronic music brings a poetic and melancholic tone to the film’s journey, yet there are also 19 different songs from various Chinese rock groups from different periods, none better or more poetically evocative than Omnipotent Youth Society - Kill the One from Shijiazhuang YouTube (5:44), used in a gorgeous musical interlude while panning the streets of Datong that depicts the dull and despairing life of workers in a state-owned factory in an inland industrial city, which represents an aftermath to the hope that took place after the Great Economic Reforms of the 80’s and 90’s (Reform and opening up), where the working class shouldered much of the responsibility of advancing social development, yet rampant unemployment from an economic downturn left those dreams a distant memory.
Confused by his sudden disappearance, Qiao Qiao sets off in search for Bin, a particularly elusive figure, suddenly finding herself traveling down the Yangtze River, wandering through Fengjie’s eerily half-demolished communities that are about to be submerged by water and disappear altogether, along with a dozen other cities, where more than a million residents are being displaced by the massive construction project of the Three Gorges Dam, taking more than a decade to build, which was the subject of Jia’s astonishing earlier film Still Life (Sanxia haoren) (2006). The film lingers here the longest, feeling more like a throwback to an Antonioni film, whose camera endlessly followed Jeanne Moreau and Monica Vitti through an alienating modernity, as Qiao Qiao similarly wanders endlessly, like a phantom, through the demolished buildings that resemble the ruins of a war zone, where the impact is simply staggering. Jia alters the rhythm and perspective from his earlier films through Qiao Qiao’s silence, interjecting new footage, where she is an observer of pivotal moments in history, feeling almost like a time traveler, where the breadth of the experience is hard to fathom, with music holding a key to the past, unlocking memories, where the lyrics can reflect the inner life of the characters, becoming a profoundly affecting montage that serves as a time capsule, yet that breakneck speed of rapid development, technological advancement, and economic progress comes with a price, as the country’s traditional identity also seems doomed to disappear. We learn that Bin has been involved in shady real estate business dealings, where gangs of kids are sent to fight other gangs, while he’s also dating a corrupt politician who quickly exits the vicinity with stolen cash before authorities can make an arrest, so as quickly as she finds him, she leaves him, as he’s no longer the man she’s been searching for, with a mysterious fortune teller offering his assessment, CAUGHT BY THE TIDES Clip | TIFF 2024 YouTube (1:25). Returning back to the slower rhythm of life in Datong, the film jumps ahead to the Covid pandemic years in China, with the appearance of masks and disinfectants, along with empty streets and sterile interiors, the only section of the film shot with original footage by Éric Gautier, where there is a stunning dance sequence of masked partners who try to ignore the presence of a man who is literally spraying the floor with disinfectant as they dance around him. A much older Qiao Qiao is seen working as a cashier in a supermarket, where she has two mysterious interactions, one coming face-to-face with Bin as their paths cross again purely by chance when he arrives at her cash register, recognizing him even with his mask on, but he lowers it without uttering a word, apparently in diminished health, as he walks with an assisting device.
The other is with a robot friend that greets entrants to the supermarket, programmed with artificial intelligence to read faces while spouting quotes from Western authors in an attempt to make people feel better about themselves, where she plays a game of hide and seek, in and out of its sight of vision, each time challenging its reaction. Robots are everywhere in China, seen in hotels, public offices, shopping malls, where they clean floors, deliver meals, or just provide helpful information, where it’s hard to assess how much lives are already changing by the effects of artificial intelligence or the diffusion of TikTok recordings in the changing landscape, a time when technological developments and the rise of influencer culture usher in what feels like an unwanted modernization, as it’s become a short attention span world that doesn’t give a damn about history anymore unless they happened to view it on TikTok. Outside the supermarket a band is performing, with the couple reuniting again as a song plays Exactly The Same by Wu Tiao Ren, 五条人- 一模一样（《风流一代》 YouTube (2:10), which is about a pair of lovers meeting and parting over four different seasons, which perfectly resonates with what the characters are experiencing, as their relationship mirrors the isolation and loneliness of the pandemic. Following his characters from Northern to Southern China and back again, the unexpected finale is uniquely powerful and poetic, with a song playing over the end credits that was released in the early stages of the pandemic, Go On, by Cui Jian, Ji Xu YouTube (6:12), a popular rock musician who resonated with the student movement in 1989 (1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre), where the song is given an anthem-like quality that suggests a sense of unfulfilled aspiration. Jia used cameras that gradually emerged over time to reflect the differing time periods, where the digital formats ranged from mini DV to surveillance cameras and VHS footage all mixed together on 16mm and 35mm, as grainy, low-grade digital video gives way to a high-definition crispness, becoming a meditation on the flow of time, a collective expression of hope and grief in a changing China, as the world has completely changed since the making of UNKNOWN PLEASURES in 2002, something Jia recognizes all too well in our increasingly bewildering present. He has been exploring economic and social changes in contemporary China for decades, focusing on how these changes affect ordinary people, especially how large-scale policies and changes affect individual lives, notably marginalized or voiceless characters, as this artist, more than anyone else, illuminates the inner lives of these citizens. Jia wants to look back to a time when the future was completely unknown to us, and then pair them with images of today, which back then was considered the future, offering a different perspective that uniquely navigates contemporary China while documenting the complexity of the individual experiences who bear witness to the turbulent emotional and social changes.
