Montreal Gazette Review
Farewell to a river
world
BRENDAN KELLY
The Gazette
Friday, February 22, 2008
On the face of it, a feature documentary about a hydroelectric dam in China does not sound like the most exciting of films. But Montreal director Yung Chang's Up the Yangtze is completely captivating - and anything but a dull slice of pedagogical filmmaking - because Chang wisely focuses on the personal in this look at the fallout from the absurdly ambitious Three Gorges Dam project.
That tack is precisely why the film produced by Montreal indie heroes EyeSteelFilm and the National Film Board is already pulling in big crowds in Toronto and Vancouver, and is likely going to do the same here at the AMC Forum.
At the start, Chang's narration notes that the dam is the largest hydroelectric project in the world and the flooding caused by the project is expected to force the relocation of at least two million people.
"Imagine the Grand Canyon being turned into a Great Lake," Chang drily notes.
Chang hones in on one young woman, 16-year-old Yu Shui, and shows how her life is changed forever by the rising waters. Her family, who are subsistence farmers toiling on the banks of the Yangtze, are amongst the millions being dislocated by the project, and, like so many, they are about to lose all of their income once the flood waters wash away the land they farm.
That's why Yu Shui takes a job in the kitchen of one of the luxury cruise ships that ferries Western tourists up the Yangtze for one last bizarre farewell tour of the historic sites that are set to disappear forever.
It's not an easy transition for this ultra-shy country girl who is struggling to learn English, pick up basic service-industry skills and adjust to living on her own for the first time in her life.
Chang juxtaposes the pampered lifestyle of the tourists whooping it up on the cruise liner with the deadening poverty of Yu Shui's family back home on the shore. But his is a nuanced approach to the politics. He doesn't sledgehammer you with the message but rather lets the real-life stories - and stunning images - speak for themselves.
Director of photography Wang Shi Qing beautifully shoots this magnificent river and the countryside around it, but there is a sense of Apocalypse Now/Heart of Darkness foreboding as the ship makes its way upriver, a feeling of dread underlined by French composer Olivier Alary's evocative score.
The dam and the strange tourist trade that has sprung up around it are symbols of the economic miracle that is radically reshaping China, and Up the Yangtze is a timely reminder, as the Beijing Olympics approach, that there is often a terrible human toil to be paid for this kind of industrial progress.
"Things are changing for the better," says one of the managers on the cruise ship.See the film and make up your own mind.
The producers of the film have created a fund to raise money for Yu Shui's family. For more information on the fund, consult the website www.givemeaning.com/project/yufam.
bkelly@thegazette.canwest.com
Up the Yangtze
Rating 4
Parents' guide: for all.