it’s telling that he jianjun‘s documentary’s credits roll bills the characters by their real life nick-names (that they use on screen) as well as crediting a screenwriter. the formally inventive blurring of fact and fiction in river people is much more overt than in most docs but although scripted is based on reality. shot over 3 years, in a mostly muddy palette of browns, the crew became an extended part of the fishing family that is dealing with over-fished rivers, kids wanting to leave for the city all at a hypnotically drawn out pace.
there is that very chinese poetically ambivalent concern for the unknowable consequences of uncontrollable, unstoppable, hyper-development.
scored by zhang yi. another best of diff08 highlight.