Flashback: Still Life (2006) – Jia Zhangke’s Three Gorges Dam chronicle of destruction and despair

Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke likes to slow things down so that they can be clearly observed. For Platform (2000), Unknown Pleasures (2002) and The World (2004) – the trilogy that will probably stand as his masterpiece – he adopted a slow pace to depict the lives of those who had been left behind by the country’s rapid modernisation.

Still Life (2006), Jia’s film about the mass social dislocation caused by the building of the controversial Three Gorges Dam, brings some documen­tary techniques into the mix. The film was shot in Fengjie (an ancient city in Chongqing municipality that’s now submerged) against the background of the demolition of the towns in the area to make way for the flooding, and Jia used many local residents as actors. The combination of real lives, fictional characters and demolition makes for thunderously powerful viewing.

The story focuses on two characters from the northwest who are searching for their spouses – both disappeared during the forced evacuation of Fengjie. Han Sanming (played by actor Han Sanming, who gave his name to the character), a miner from Shanxi, is looking for his estranged wife, whom he has not seen for many years.

A second storyline features Shen Hong (played by Jia’s actress wife, Zhao Tao), a nurse also from Shanxi whose husband came to Fengjie, became a demolition industry boss and stopped calling her.

Although the focus of the film is the destruction and despair caused by the evacuation, Jia is too good a filmmaker to ignore the plot, which features some unexpected revelations and some emotionally resonant confrontations.