Still Life

Life is anything but still in this extraordinary study of social and cultural terrorism from Chinese director Jia Zhang Ke, which focuses on the construction of the Three Gorges Dam in southern China, and the numerous towns and villages that are being submerged by the rising Yangtze River. Shot in high definition, the film follows two people’s search for lost relatives and offsets its staid, documentary-like aesthetic with a yearning, almost absurdist tone. Drawing much of its emotional heft from lingering shots of the bruised landscape, it looks like the set of some post-apocalyptic Hollywood saga (at one point, even a CG spaceship blasts off in the background). Zhang Ke has captured the point where progress and tradition cross swords, and it’s a quietly devastating place.

Janey Springer