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A lasting yet fragile love story between Qiaoqiao (Zhao Tao) and Bin (Li Zhubin), unfolding in China from the early 2000s to the present day.
Drawn to each other, Qiaoqiao and Bin enjoy everything the city has to offer, singing and dancing. Until the day Bin decides to try his luck in a place bigger than Datong. He leaves without warning. Some time later, Qiaoqiao decides to go looking for him.
Tracing all his previous films, Jia Zhang-Ke offers an epic look at the romantic destiny of his timeless heroine, Qiaoqiao. Spanning 21 years of a country undergoing profound transformation, the film provides a fresh perspective on contemporary China as well as on individual experiences facing emotional and social upheavals.
Opaque for the Uninitiated
The first images of Caught by the Tides were shot in 2001. Other sequences were filmed over the next two decades, culminating in the scenes shot in Datong in 2023. Thus, it can be said that the film truly covers the years it depicts.
In the early 2000s, Jia Zhang-Ke immortalized crowds singing along. He twirled with the dancers, then followed the young people to all their favorite spots. Over the next twenty years, he occasionally followed some of these same people, tracking them to the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, to Zhuhai in the far south, to the northeast and southwest of China. These images are part of the film, bringing with them changes in format as the story progresses. From 4:3 to 21:9 and passing through 16:9, Caught by the tides recounts the passage of time and what came with it.
Jia Zhang-Ke
However, since it explains nothing and the changes occur without real transitions, this film remains very opaque for someone unaware of the social changes that China has experienced since the early 2000s. The changes in image format, as well as the ultra-slow pace and the scarcity of dialogue, suggest that it is more of a documentary than fiction. Which is not the case.
Moreover, if one hasn’t seen any of the director’s previous films – or if it’s been more than 10 years, as was my case with A Touch of Sin –, it’s very difficult to get on board with this story which, in the end, doesn’t really have a story.
If it weren’t for a few text messages sent by Qiaoqiao, we would have no idea what is happening. The character of “Qiaoqiao” first appeared in Unknown Pleasures in 2002. At the time, she was a young woman living in a small inland town, inexperienced but rebellious in the face of social and economic forces on the verge of exploding. In 2018, “Qiaoqiao” reappeared in Ash is Purest White, where she now lives on the fringes of the underworld, at the heart of China’s rapid economic development.
The Importance of Music
In the first part of the film, we see Qiaoqiao singing, which allows us to know that she has a voice, because otherwise she simply never speaks.
“I wanted to present her as a silent person, especially because she represents a sector of society that has undergone very rapid changes over the past two decades. These changes pose constant challenges and sometimes push people into difficult situations. Faced with such social realities, we feel strong and complex emotions, and we sometimes lack the words to express or describe them. One could even say that these emotions can never be fully expressed. Qiaoqiao’s silence allows the viewer to imagine what is buried deep within her mind. Her personal experience will help fill this void.”
This moment when she sings is important because the entire film rests on the significance of the songs to explain the story. It’s a bit like a kind of narrator that appears here and there in the film.
For example, the opening song, Underground (whose title literally translates to “Forest Fire”), is composed by Brain Failure, a Chinese rock band from the early 2000s. The lyrics quote a verse from a famous Tang Dynasty poem (“Even a forest fire cannot burn all the weeds, they will grow back in the spring breeze”), which emphasizes the resilience of life. An allusion to the female character and her resilience.
Qiaoqiao (Zhao Tao)
Another song from the first part, Kill the One from Shijiazhuang by the Omnipotent Youth Society, depicts the bleak and desperate lives of state factory workers in an inland industrial city. One of the first scenes shows a group of miners emerging from the mine at the end of a day’s work.
The song Yi Mo Yi Yang (literally “The Same”) by the band Wutiaoren, which Qiaoqiao and Bin hear in front of the supermarket towards the end of the film, tells the story of a couple in love who meet and separate over the four seasons. It echoes the experience of the film’s protagonists.
Finally, the end song, « Ji Xu » (literally “Continue”) by the famous rock singer Cui Jian, was released during the pandemic lockdowns; it is a resounding call for dignity. Without revealing the ending, there is still a direct link to the story here.
Why use so much music to tell the story? Because it can be transmitted. Songs from different eras can take us back to those eras, like a code or a key to unlock the past.
A Little More…
Caught by the tides also recounts how women tend to be resilient through time and trials, while men tend to end up broken by life.
When we talk about the passage of time, we cannot ignore technological advancements. Thus, technology complements the narrative by showing that not only do people evolve, but so does the environment. And often, the latter forces people to evolve, whether they want to or not.
In 2006, in a teahouse in the Three Gorges, Qiaoqiao discovers an American science fiction film about robots. Seventeen years later, in Datong, she works in a supermarket and makes a robot “friend” there. These two scenes broadly summarize the entry of AI and robotics into our lives. Robots are now omnipresent in China: hotels, government administrations, shopping centers. What was once science fiction entertainment has therefore become a place where one chats with Siri on their iPhone.
I cannot call this feature film particularly good. However, for a certain audience, it may spark a nostalgic light in the back of the brain.
Caught by the tides is presented at FCMS on April 9 and 12, 2025.Trailer
