Impressive doc hits big screen: Up the Yangtze

I just saw the very successful Canadian-produced documentary ‘Up the Yangze’ and was very impressed. This is a first film, by a young Montreal-based director of Chinese origin, Yung Chang. It tells an epic story, with grand visuals of the transformation of the Three Gorges and the Yangze river valley, but it tells it through a touching and closely filmed story mainly of one family. They are poor uneducated farmers, and they cultivate a small plot of land by the river. As the plans for damming the river move ahead, they know their land will be flooded and they will be displaced along with 2 million other people. Unable to pay for her education, they send their oldest daughter to get a job on a tourist tour boat which travels up the river to the dam, in the final stages of construction. This provides terrific opportunities for showing the encounter of two worlds, and for cutting back and forth between the obsequious tour guides who are prepared to say anything to please the authorities and make a buck, and the struggling farm family for whom this whole development is a disaster. The filmmakers mine this rich vein for all it’s worth, to great effect. The numerous ironies and the poignancy of the situation steers the film away from any kind of simplistic analysis. And far from romanticising the old ways, they contrast the hardships of the age-old poverty with the glitter of a new shamelessly promotional commercialism. Through the story of one family you get a portrait of all of China and its dilemmas, economic, environmental, human. It’s also beautifuly filmed and edited. What an accomplishment ! I encourage you to go and see this film on the big screen, we need to show that there’s a place for theatrical screenings of docs.

My assistant Steven Ladouceur added the following information and links – apologies for the repetition.

This Friday February 22nd opens the Montreal screenings of Yung Chang’s highly acclaimed first feature-length documentary film, Up the Yangtze, at the AMC Forum. The Mirror says viewing this film is “one of those experiences that reinvigorates and restores your faith in the documentary film medium.” Chang graduated from Concordia University’s Film Production programme and his latest achievement stems from a “surreal” journey with his family to China in 2002. One year later, Chang was receiving support from EyeSteelFilm productions through former professor Daniel Cross and then the National Film Board. After developing and refining the project throughout 2004 and 2005, the film was mainly shot in 2006 and post-production ended in July of 2007. From it’s inception Up the Yangtze has been receiving awards and is continuing to do so now more then ever as it is breaking box office records.