China’s Jia Zhangke on ‘Caught by the Tides’

Jia Zhangke, China’s quintessential indie director, says that the COVID-era lockdowns gave him a chance to rethink and review the miles of footage that he has shot over more than 20 years of filmmaking. The result was “Caught by the Tides,” which premiered at Cannes and plays again this week at the Busan International Film Festival.

In “Tides,” Jia mixes up older footage with specially-created new material and has his wife and muse, Zhao Tao wander through twenty years of Chinese history. They are both documenting and dramatizing recent Chinese societal and economic development – from the time when China was granted admission to the World Trade Organization, through the time when it won the right to hold the (2008) summer Olympic Games through to a near present.

Jia’s approach is like that of a pulp fiction writer. Speaking at a Busan event, Zhao explains that ‘Qiao Qiao’ is Jia’s favorite name and has been used before for characters played by her. “But this is not the same character. It is a different Qiao Qiao,” she said. Similarly, “Tides” makes prominent use of recent music. “But I did not feel the need to use it sequentially. Using it in a non-linear fashion, gave me more freedom,” Jia said.

Jia embraces the unreliable “We are an animal of forgetfulness. More than the footage itself, the sound recordings took me back to my past. There are lots of unrelated fragments, not particularly relevant, in the first third of the film. But our memories are anyway always fragmented,” he said.

That willingness to simultaneously to travel backwards and forwards, through fact and fiction, means that Jia’s upcoming projects may include both a film about Chinese history and another on artificial intelligence. “I have so much interest in the current China that I’m sure to make other films on the subject. But my next one might be a historical one. And I’m studying up on technology in order to do a film about AI,” he said. “Tides” already made use of AI in a newer section in which Qiao Qiao interacts with a robot.

Jia’s gaze is both sympathetic and critical. “People speak less that they did in 2000. Women then were able to sing together,” he said referencing a joyful scene at the beginning of the movie in which a small group of women sing acapella songs in celebration of Women’s Day, and which he said he filmed spontaneously and with a live sound recording. “Now they cannot do that. Those days were a more passionate and enthusiastic time. Nowadays we only communicate through the internet.”

Asked whether his gaze has become softer, Jia almost admitted that he may have mellowed. “I’ve looked back at my own footage and other people’s films, and I can see that my perspective has changed. In China today, there are more and more rules.”

Changed or not, Zhao explains that Jia’s outlook is a kindly and influential one. “When I started acting, I cared little about people beyond my own immediate family. Jia, however, is fascinated by other people. And through him I have learned that, no matter what their backgrounds, these are the people we should love,” she said. “This film [“Tides”] is a precious gift. I was able to depict the lives of Chinese women through their twenties, thirties and forties.”