Be it 50 years, nine months and four days separating Florentino and Fermina in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s classics Love in the Time of Cholera or 22 years that come in the way of Veer and Zaara in Yash Chopra’s 'Veer-Zaara', there can be something incredibly poignant but affirmative about tales of love interrupted or thwarted in an instant yet lingering on and enduring the forward march of time.
Caught by the Tides, the latest work by China’s leading filmmaker, Jia Zhangke, is about a similar fragile bond, shared by Qiao Qiao with Bin, that spans from the early 2000s to the present day. But the exploration of the ebb and flow of Bin’s individual life encompasses something larger here. It becomes a way to portray the far-reaching and often turbulent economic and social transformation in contemporary China. It’s also a love letter to filmmaking and to Zhangke’s own wife, muse and the perennial presence in his films, Zhao Tao. She plays the pivotal role of Qiao Qiao and embodies the strength and spirit of the film in her delicate frame. The sprawling epic narrative begins in working-class Datong City in North China in 2000, the first spring of the new century. Singer and model Qiao Qiao is in love with her boss Bin. As though on cue, there’s much singing and dancing surrounding them. The turning point comes when Bin decides to try his luck in a bigger place with brighter prospects. He leaves without notice but just a note that he will have her over once he has made enough money. Qiao Qiao follows in his search. Her journey to find Bin becomes a discovery of China, in a manner of speaking, even as she herself becomes a Mother China kind of figure.
The journey also becomes a mode with which Zhangke revisits his own filmography—the films, characters, and locations. He mines the footage from the past, some of it shot casually not necessarily for a film, assembles it and blends it with the fresh shots in a manner that makes the passage of 21 years feel real and tangible. In that sense the film is true to its time frame, having literally been filmed in the 20 years it is set in.
A reason why the actors also appear to have aged naturally, from the early scenes to the last. There’s a singular mix of fact and fiction even as Zhangke’s verite style alternates with a more elaborate and embellished narrative, particularly the use of song-n-dance and the nods to operas, fashion shows in the malls and parades on the streets. They all become the new, emerging edifices of lives in mutation.
As progress and development drive China, ugly structures take over the verdant hills. Meanwhile, the love of Qiao Qiao for Ben finds itself at a crossroads, challenged by his materialism and increasing association with the corrupt and the questionable. When she reunites with him after a while, there’s no way out for her but to break up with him. They meet again during COVID-19 pandemic. An infirm, brittle, ageing love in times of uncertainties.
As past, present and future collide, much of Caught by the Tides might seem like what we have already seen in Zhangke’s enviable body of work. Yet it has a freshness and power that is uniquely its own. Reminiscences powered with immediacy. Call it a chronicle or critique, even when it comes to cynicism and despair for the future Zhangke can’t help not articulating it with profundity and lyricism. And then it’s for Zhao Tao to be the essence of his views, her chiselled face and fluid expressions—sad, troubled, silent—saying more than the words or the images. It’s hard to shake off her rueful smile or the faraway look. They linger on, quite like the lost, adrift love on the screen.
Cinema Without Borders
In this weekly column, the writer introduces you to powerful cinema from across the world
Film: Caught by the Tides