In my capacity helping to program world festivals and as an international critic, I have seen few films over the last few years on this general subject that are as strong and aesthetically pleasing as this one. Mixed reality styles, beautiful and artful, are blended with vérité scenes into a fresher, more character-revealing whole. The power of the film is exemplified with a time-lapse shot as the home of a helpless poor Chinese family becomes inundated by the flooding of the Yangtze River caused by the building of the Three Gorges Dam Project. In this fantastic shot, the microcosm of helplessness in the face of the long march of inevitable technological materialism challenges us to do something about the unbridled march of 'progress.' I imagine the film will do well and its beauty and strong humanism will attract wide audiences. Beyond that is anyone's guess, and I wish it, the family, and the earth itself, all the luck in the world.
Peter Wintonick, International Editor, POV