Movies Reviews
Movie Review: Before the Flood
By Andy McKeague Aug 28, 2005, 20:00 GMT
In the documentary ‘Before The Flood’, the small city of Fengjie, is sinking. The water is rising, the mud and the water is even covering the floors of some homes. The people are desperate. This is the situation we are faced with when watching the events due to the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, and in a few months, the small but historic city will be no more. The Yangtze will not be discriminating as it covers the area that was once the homes and lifeblood for it’s inhabitants. At the end, it seems that you have to look after yourself, such irony for a communist state.
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Directors Yan Yu and Li Yifan observe without comment, using mostly hand held cameras making the viewer giddy at times. But this social comment, which is shocking and heart breaking is not an easy view. This is a sad story of people that are poor facing the reality of loosing virtually everything they have in a forced relocation. The State is unhelpful at the very least, offering at times what seems to be a lottery of whom they should cater for. We sit open mouthed as we watch people tearing down their own homes in an attempt to get more cash from the scrap metal they uncover. This is where they lived, they grew up, and created an existence for themselves, and it might be for the better of society, but to be casually placed aside brings a lump to the throat and is completely inexcusable.
Some families are introduced in their plight; some too old to fend for themselves and stating that death is the better and perhaps there only option. Others try to use the system and speak up in the local meetings only to have the red tape waved in front of their every turn, these channels can takes days and weeks and shortly their homes will be no more than a sunken memory, time is not on their side either. We see families trying to find a fresh water supply in the rubble of what was once bustling with fresh fish and porters and market stalls. This looks like a war zone.
And to those lucky few that are fit and well enough to move with their families, what joy is awaiting them ? There is a New Fengjie. This is a bleak and faceless place of grey concrete underneath the mammoth pillars of a suspension bridge, with families being told that they need to cram in to an incomplete space even smaller than their previously bursting home.
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This is not a happy film, the people on the whole believe in the Party and State and feel betrayed and abandoned by the local officials. The shocking plight of these people is like something that we would associate in history books from a hundred years ago, but in a time where we should know much better it makes it all the more grim.
Soon the waters will take away the remainder of what was once a place called home and this film should be a reminder of a people that were swept away against their will. Sadly this is presented much too overlong, and at times borders on tedious, as whole conversations are represented between negotiating parties for salvage rates and such, and this to the more casual viewer could detract from the very real plight on show.
At present this is being shown as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival and will be on a general release later in the year.
Access media from Before The Flood.
Access media from Before The Flood.
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