China film director Jia Zhangke: Still Life

Lately, Chinese director Jia Zhangke was awarded the top prize of Venice Film Festival, whose winning film is “Still Life”. Relocation of families as a result of the largest-scale water engineering project “Three Gorges Dam” in the history of China and the world, has provided the backdrop for the film story to unfold. I am yet to see the film - this does not stop me from tipping my hat to director Jia Zhangke for his choice of the film subject.

You may not be aware that the construction of the three gorges dam has forced at least one million families - some said two million - relocated and displaced, not to mention the geological hazards and the environmental threat the US$70 million and 17-year long project has caused. Could you imagine the extent of consequence and tribulations for those affected just by imaging the sheer number of one million or two million? I can’t, to be honest. The scope is simply too grave for me to imagine, for each number represents a human being with his or her own life.

These people suffered in silence, for the sake of the economic growth of their country, in whose increasing prosperity they hardly can share. It is saddening that so many people in China, who have neither money nor power, are forced to relocate and be displaced because of rapid development of the property market and the over-heating economy. New buildings pop up everywhere. When the middle class or the super rich move into these buildings, the poor are forced to leave their homes to make way for demolition and re-development. Some get minimal compensation, some none. If you want to appeal to the local government, you can be beaten up by the police or sent to labour prison for being “reformed”.

It was just disclosed in a Hong Kong newspaper that more than 200 residents in Shanghai - China’s largest city and financial centre - lately appealed to the Beijing ruling elite, depicting their sufferings at the hands of the corrupt officials who ordered their homes be torn down and they be punished after repeated appeals. 

It shouldn’t be forgotten that China’s economic growth is achieved at the expense of those at the bottom rungs of the social ladders and I simply do not know when China can be more of an equalitarian society, or if one day it can.