At the Movies: Up the Yangtze
Don't confuse Up the Yangtze with a revival of those old post-Ealing comedies, Up Pompeii, Up The Front, etc. It's no comedy. It's a filmmaker's personal, disquieting documentary about life on and beside the Yangtze River as the world's biggest hydroelectric project, the Three Gorges Dam, transforms lives and the landscape forever.
In his choice of subject, Chinese-Canadian director and narrator Yung Chang not only gives us a window into modern China, but poses troubling questions and passes social comment by filming two teenagers facing a changing world.
Though the dam is not expected to be complete until 2011, the waters in its catchment area have already begun their 175-metre rise, and the displacement of more than two million people has begun. Peasant farmers' homes and land are being submerged, depriving them of the ability to feed themselves.
"China is too hard for common people," sobbed one man. "When we had to move we were dragged and beaten...we had no money to bribe the officials." Many are relocated to urban buildings, where they are obliged to become consumers. They need jobs to pay for food-and for their new, very first electricity supply.
Will China need another dam to provide power for all the new customers created by this one?
Meanwhile, the river is choked with cruisers brimming with rich global tourists on "Farewell Cruises", curious to witness a China that is disappearing even as they view it. The workforce for these ships is drawn from the province's youth, rich and poor alike. As we observe the training and progress of a peasant's daughter and the only son of an affluent family, there is much to distress (the arrogant products of a one-child policy, accelerating westernisation, loss of culture) and impress (great staff training models, surprising honesty about the spoiled generation).
I had expected a more technical documentary about the dam, but found a strong social statement instead.
"I'm not a scientist or an expert on contemporary China. What I have tried to do is to tell an engaging story and make a moving film-one that explores the impact of the changes on the lives of real people," Yung Chang told one interviewer. And he does, with sensitivity, compassion, and bold images. The film takes a while to find its focus and fulfil its messages, but when they come, they're memorable.
This is a slice of life we haven't seen before, and it looks fascinating but doesn't taste too good. Independent studies and works like Jacques Leslie's Deep Water are showing that mega-dams simply don't work in the long run; their negative effects dominate their benefits.
This is a movie of gross contrasts. A cruiser sails upstream from the dam at night, past a city festooned with more electric lights than there are people in China-all burning up the watts-and for no purpose other than decoration.
Later, a boy watches the bubbles rising from his submerged home. His father visits the dam and reflects: "This is good for our country, but not very good for me."
Watch, think and learn. This is our world.
Maria Polglase
UP THE YANGTZE (M) 1H 40 CANADA DOCUMENTARY. Next screening at the Village Theatre, Sunday 26 October, 5pm.
