Up The Yangtze (Eye Steel Films 2007), a narrative documentary by Chinese-Canadian Yung Chang, seeks to portray the immense effect of the Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydroelectric project in the world, displacing over 2 million people living in the Yangtze river valley.
The film follows “Cindy” Yu Shui, a 16-year-old girl who goes to work and provide for her family on one of the “farewell” cruise boats, a tourist attraction for wealthy westerners fascinated with the idea that the “Old China” along the river bed will soon drown and disappear. While the old villages are submerged and lost with the flooding caused by the Dam, a new Chinese way of life begins to emerge out of the Yangtze. “Jerry,” an egotistical, handsome 19-year-old, gives us a glimpse of this “New China,” through his obsession with money and English-speaking skills.
Chang spends time with “Cindy” Yu Shui’s family as the river slowly rises, until the family’s home on the river bed is no longer. This family and their home, in its complete submersion in the Yangtze’s thick brown water, have a haunting effect. Though the Chinese government touts the magnificence of the dam project and the prosperity it will create for the people, one can only wonder if these effects will be felt by the displaced “common people” along the river bed.
If you have any interest in China’s rapid development it is imperative that you watch this film as soon as possible. Up The Yangtze is the best portrayal of not only the Three Gorges Dam project, but globalization’s social and environmental effects through a humanist perspective to date. I also highly recommend Jia Zhang Ke’s Still Life (2006), which, though not a documentary, is a more intimate and cinematically stunning exploration into the Yangtze river dam’s surroundings.
