This is not a Chinese copy of "Before the Rain"! The documentary is about a city which was going to be flooded in 2003, about people's mentality at that turbulent moment of histoy.
"Fengjie is a 1,000-year-old city on the Yangtze River, a bustling centre of commerce and a community of considerable social vitality. It's also about to become a new Atlantis, thanks to the Chinese government's mammoth Three Gorges Dam project, which will flood the entire region.This superb, gripping documentary follows the fate of its inhabitants, as they scramble, literally and figuratively, for higher ground - specifically, the residences in 'New Fengjie', allocated via lottery and far smaller than the homes they've worked a lifetime to build. "
I feel its structure is rather loose and the directors were not able to make the political struggle between civil society and the powerful governmnet as its major story line. Instead, the film took an outsider's objective position and tried to have a balanced view. The story is really about ruthlesss exploration of citizen's housing wealth, the only property of most city dwellers in that poor town of Sichuan. However, the film is so mild that you can hardly see what the story is about. Anyway, it is impressive to see how a town was torn down before our very eyes, with its residents became a crowd without identity. They were cut from their history, their traditional way of living (loss of argiculture field or small private inn or the church), and their connection with each other. The demolition is a symbol of the destruction of traditional Chinese society. I can not help thinking the big “拆”in Beijing and in many other cities. Nobody pay attention to the lost history which were maintained in the architectures, in the buildings, in the old communities and in the rather powerless ordinary people.
I should make a documentary of Beijing and its demolation before it is too late. Lao Zhu once told the story of his effort to persuaded Beijing Municipal government to follow German's example, to precisely measured old buildings and communities before they were torn down. No body listened and the history was destroyed by the greed desire for moderalizaton. Fengjie disappears from our map and Beijing is not. However I feel more sad about Beijing. She likes a old lady and is forced to make plastic surgeries all the time. She is ugly by both old and new standards. what can I do to save her? I miss her layback life style, her elegency, her narrow street and endless blue sky in the mid Fall.
2006年3月23日星期四
Before the Flood (Yan Mo)
This is not a Chinese copy of "Before the Rain"! The documentary is about a city which was going to be flooded in 2003, about people's mentality at that turbulent moment of histoy.
"Fengjie is a 1,000-year-old city on the Yangtze River, a bustling centre of commerce and a community of considerable social vitality. It's also about to become a new Atlantis, thanks to the Chinese government's mammoth Three Gorges Dam project, which will flood the entire region.This superb, gripping documentary follows the fate of its inhabitants, as they scramble, literally and figuratively, for higher ground - specifically, the residences in 'New Fengjie', allocated via lottery and far smaller than the homes they've worked a lifetime to build. "
I feel its structure is rather loose and the directors were not able to make the political struggle between civil society and the powerful governmnet as its major story line. Instead, the film took an outsider's objective position and tried to have a balanced view. The story is really about ruthlesss exploration of citizen's housing wealth, the only property of most city dwellers in that poor town of Sichuan. However, the film is so mild that you can hardly see what the story is about. Anyway, it is impressive to see how a town was torn down before our very eyes, with its residents became a crowd without identity. They were cut from their history, their traditional way of living (loss of argiculture field or small private inn or the church), and their connection with each other. The demolition is a symbol of the destruction of traditional Chinese society. I can not help thinking the big “拆”in Beijing and in many other cities. Nobody pay attention to the lost history which were maintained in the architectures, in the buildings, in the old communities and in the rather powerless ordinary people.
I should make a documentary of Beijing and its demolation before it is too late. Lao Zhu once told the story of his effort to persuaded Beijing Municipal government to follow German's example, to precisely measured old buildings and communities before they were torn down. No body listened and the history was destroyed by the greed desire for moderalizaton. Fengjie disappears from our map and Beijing is not. However I feel more sad about Beijing. She likes a old lady and is forced to make plastic surgeries all the time. She is ugly by both old and new standards. what can I do to save her? I miss her layback life style, her elegency, her narrow street and endless blue sky in the mid Fall.
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