‘Caught by the Tides’ washes over you like a dream

‘Caught by the Tides’ is a poetic experiment in narrative, memory, and the quiet resilience of a woman left behind.

By James Verniere/Boston Movie News

Is there a way to capture the passage of time and the complexity of lives in film without relying on the standard narrative built from newly written dialogue and staged scenes? Chinese director Jia Zhangke has certainly attempted something different with “Caught by the Tides.” The film is composed largely of unused footage from his earlier works, most notably 2006’s award-winning “Still Life,” which was filmed in Fengjie, a village on the Yangtze River that was eventually submerged and dismantled due to the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. There is a certain irony in Zhangke constructing a new film from footage of a place—and a story—defined by deconstruction.

Driven by the limitations that the pandemic put on filmmaking in China, Zhangke assembled footage and “unused rushes,” according to editor Matthieu Laclau, that Zhangke shot for films “Unknown Pleasures” (2002) and “Ash Is Purest White” (2018), made using different digital cameras. He also shot new footage. One might describe the action in “Caught by the Tides” as a romantic version of Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” depicting a woman named Qiao Qiao (Zhangke’s wife and muse Tao Zhao) and her journey down the Yangtze River to find her former boss and lover Bin (Zhubin Li of “Still Life”). Her journey as a passenger in an array of vessels is the film’s visual trademark.

We begin, however, in the northern city of Datong, where Qiao Qiao, who does not speak a word of dialogue, works as a singer, dancer and club girl. Her manager and lover is a feckless and, in one scene, cruel and abusive young man named Bin. Eventually, he leaves, sending Qiao Qiao a text that he will send for her after he gets settled. We see a lone Qiao Qiao walking through the city, holding her sweater over her head to shield herself from the sun’s strong rays. Later, she will swat the flies in her flat in an attempt to keep life’s unpleasantries away from her. Chinese President Jiang Zemin (1993-2003) is in power. The Workers Cultural Palace is in shabby shape. But the villagers use stage shows and no-budget operas. People often look directly at Zhangke’s camera. One ditty goes, “The sound of the wind is my song.” The streets are full of tuk-tuks, a newsstand, a payphone and a bank. Inside a club, girls and male customers line dance. Outside, people march in the street, some with torches.

Carrying her backpack in front of her, Qiao Qiao embarks on her odyssey. On one stop, she stays at a Catholic Women’s hostel and hears a tale of sexual betrayal from a fellow traveler. Using her Nokia phone, Qiao Qiao texts and calls Bin. He does not return her messages. Two gangs of young men fight with wooden clubs on a pier next to a docked ferry with a bow in the shape of a dragon’s head.

Years later, an older Qiao Qiao and Bin will be reunited in the southern coastal city of Zhuhai during the pandemic, their identities obscured by masks (more irony). The passage of time and enormous change have been conveyed in a cinematic stream of consciousness: images, captions, music, shifting locations, unlined and lined faces. “Caught by the Tides” covers the same temporal ground as Zhangke’s “Mountains May Depart” (2015). The Three Gorges Dam is a symbol of the changes made to China over the past 25 years, leading to its emergence as an economic and technological superpower. Qiao Qiao chews a bun, mimicking her younger self. In “Ash Is Purest White,” Zhao plays a gangster moll named Qiao, whose lover is a man also named Bin, although not played by Li. Confused? That’s life. Zangke has been caught by the tides, too, the ebbs and flows of his previous work, of his country and the world. In a final, magical scene, Qiao Qiao encounters a soft-spoken robot serving as a supermarket greeter. The robot quotes Mother Teresa and Mark Twain on the subjects of love and laughter. Among the film’s visual motifs is a modernist sculpture honoring China’s space program. Onward and upward.

‘Caught by the Tides’

Rating: Not rated, mature themes, violence.

Cast: Tao Zhao, Zhubin Li, You Zhou

Director: Jia Zhangke

Writers: Jiahuan Wan, Jia Zhangke

Running time: 111 minutes

Where to Watch: The Brattle

Grade: A-