October 4, 2007
By GRAEME MCRANOR, 24 HOURS
"Don't compare Canada with the United States," the man in the striped shirt says in Chinese to the new recruits assembled in front of him as the luxury cruise ship prepares to take its passengers - many of them westerners - up the Yangtze River.
It's a laundry list of verboten subjects that continues with a warning not to call anyone pale, fat or ugly - a cultural oddball of a moment in Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang's feature, Up the Yangtze, a beautifully-shot documentary on life in the face of 21st century "progress" in the shadow of the Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydro-electric project in the world.
It's a dam that, when completed next year, will have displaced two million people.
"The idea was born in 2002, when I went on one of the so-called 'Farewell Cruises' along the Yangtze with my parents and grandfather," said Chang in a Q&A session with the National Film Board of Canada. "The aim is to offer tourists the chance to visit the area before it is flooded by the Three Gorges Dam. It's very surreal."
One of the families being displaced is the Yu family, who send their daughter off to work. Ironically, she's hired by Farewell Cruises, a company that's part of the tourist trade whose existence thrives on the ancient world's demise.
Up the Yangtze screens Oct. 7 at 11 a.m. (Pacific Cinematheque). For more Vancouver International Film Festival information visit www.viff.org.