Lives swept away by major changes

 

   

   Although I didn't grasp every detail in director Jia Zhang-ke's Caught by the Tides (more familiarity with China's emergence into the 21st Century would have helped), the gist of the movie is clear enough to make it worth exercising the patience Jia’s movie demands. 

    The title suggests the film's meaning. Jia follows two characters whose lives unfold against a backdrop of social upheaval. Shot over a 23-year span, the film begins in Datong, a city dominated by coal mining. 

    No main character emerges until we meet Qiaoqiao (Zhao Tao), a young model whose lover Bin (Li Zhubin) leaves her to find something beyond the life he's living. Eager to cash in on the new world that's dawning in China, Bin promises to send for Qiaoqiao once he's settled. Fat chance.  Eventually, Qiaoqiao sets out to find Bin. 

    Jia's characters age through years that include some of China's major developments, notably the construction of the massive Three Gorges Dam. 

   By the end of the film when Bin returns to Datong, robots can be found in the city's department stores and development has obliterated much of a past where entertainment once consisted of women gathering to sing.

  The film is anchored by Zhao's performance, which takes her from gamin-like playfulness to a settled middle age, not quite resigned but self-sufficient — and, yes, alone.  

    Backgrounds shot in documentary fashion almost consume the characters, which might be part of Jia's point. Transformation can devour communities and the people who rely on them. The tides of modernization may roll, but their undertow will drag some down and not everyone will land on the bright new shores of a re-imagined future.