Following Still Life, Jia Zhang-ke adds a monumental panel to the fresco that he devotes to the major upheavals of the Chinese world. At Chengdu, a city famed for its hibiscus, a large-scale residential complex intended for the middle and upper classes is replacing an industrial zone that is gradually being destroyed.
During this ongoing transformation of a whole environment where fiction and documentary interfere, nouveaux riches, former site foremen and workers give the film their testimonies and stories. Mixing memories, emotion and political musings, they reflect a whole social and mental imaginary. A confrontation of scales in which the intimate is engulfed by this oversized historical evolution.
J.B.
