Caught by the Tides

This is a movie about smoking, chain smoking in fact, by people who don't even know how to smoke. Left overs from prior movies, or stuff shot when you were wandering the streets with a spare digital camera. Tie it up with shots of a woman staring out into space, walking around lost, eating. There's actually a narrative on a black & white screen like in old silent movies, except there's no story to tell.

There's actually a scene where the woman tries to get out of a bus, but some man keeps catching her and throwing her back in her seat. This is repeated at least 10 times, I guess there were 10 takes. Might as well use them all. Lots and lots of sentimental songs, shots of crumbling buildings, boats going down the river. Heard enough?

What I like about Jia Zhangke is that his works of Chinese cinema is highly interesting and something that feels so different to any other filmmakers in China. In many ways, using strange digital camera approaches, approaches on themes, the music, the characters and setting. This movie feels like a statement of his career, in a documentary and fiction fashion, it's a mesmerizing experience.

Using archive footage and blending both non-linear fiction and non-fiction, Zhangke presents a melancholic and avant-garde narrative and atmosphere that is filled with wonderful presentations and themes explored. Presenting characters, performances, music, and dialogue that feels realistic and almost as if you are observing the daily lives of an individual and nature of human beings.

Zhao Tao continues to shine with her natural performance and language with each scene she is displayed on, the soundtrack choices are interesting, and the whole fiction vs nonfiction scenario, while it will put off many viewers, I found it to be interesting and a great experiment of a story.

I don't suggest this as the first movie to watch for Jia Zhangke though, but I say it's amazing.

A twenty year long project cobbling together home movies and professionally shot footage, "Beyond The Tides" is a meditation on the Chinese maintaining some semblance of their soul and culture in the face of relentless post-Communist industrialization, commerce, the Pandemic and imminent robotization. Two motifs are a group of karaoke women who function as a kind of Greek chorus on the passage of life and maintaining one's happiness in it all and a woman (or several different) left to prostitute, model or wonder in the country where they fit in to it all. Kind of fascinating but ultimately too fragmentary a collage to generate much enthusiasm. I was checking FB, IMDB trivia and sighing quite heavily well before it was over. Oh well.

Plot: Qiaoqiao and Bin, deeply in love, enjoy city life together through singing and dancing. Their happiness is cut short when Bin suddenly departs to seek opportunities elsewhere. Determined, Qiaoqiao sets out to find him.

Cannes film festival 2024 palme d'or nominee

A tranquil tale of loneliness,industralization through snippets of changing cities,depleted landscapes,strucures,songs,personal aspirations engraved deeply in the heart of China and it's people.

Jhangke juxtaposes scenes from his previous films to comply with the timelines covered in the film which fits in the narrative perfectly.

The most striking thing about this film is seeing the natural aging of the actors, but the collage of the different projects into a single film is rather shaky and risks turning off several people at the start of the film. Several bold choices from the directors, including the use of intertitles and what appear to be images taken from surveillance cameras. When we get to the end of the film, we can be moved and consider this project as a good film, especially with the evolution of the relationship between the two main characters, but the first part prevents us from being very generous for the rating of the work. Good use of music (it's more of a musical film than a dialogue film). Good soundtrack. Good finale.