contemporary world cinema for salmon arm and kelowna |
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Up the Yangtze
Country: Canada
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Full of stunning images, Up the Yangtze, a National Film Board of Canada co-production, shows the pace at which contemporary China’s cultures are shifting, and the manner in which the country’s newfound economic super-powerhouse status is bulldozing all other concerns. Written and directed by Concordia (Montreal) film school grad Yung Chang, this documentary takes the audience on a journey through the personal upheaval brought to one young woman’s family. Yu Shui lives along the Yangtze River with her overworked family, who have clearly led a very simple life in an embankment hut, but this is all about to change. The Three Gorges Dam, touted by Chinese authorities as symbolic of the nation’s burgeoning growth and new prosperity, has meant that the Yangtze is rising. Over two million people will have to be relocated, and Shui’s family is among them. Chang’s inspiration to make the movie came when the Canadian-born son of Chinese immigrants visited China and took a boat cruise up “The River” where his grandfather grew up. Here, he documents the end of a way of life. “Up the Yangtze is a complex portrait of a nation and its people facing epic change in a very small amount of time.” Montreal Mirror |
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