Up the Yangtze
First screened in July 2008
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Director: Yung Chang. Documentary about the human and environmental impact of China's Three Gorges Dam project, focalized around a family of "relocatees" and the teenaged laborers on board a Yangtze cruiseliner for wealthy Western tourists. Screenplay: Yung Chang. Twitter Capsule:
Top-flight case of invalidated project yielding a much richer one. Lucid about the world. Moving. Suspenseful, too.
VOR:⑤
Puts human face on Chinese development, a trend of global importance easy to ponder abstractly. Rigorous but accessible. Documentarians should watch this. Everyone should.
