Very briefly about a very average documentary. Average in its way of showing a more and more average topic. About the massive transformation of a landscape, about the enormous-, even crazy architectural plans (the world's biggest dam on the Yangtze), about the exponential growing tendency of urbanization (Shanghai's terrible urban policy), about our energy footprints on the Earth's surface (the shipwrecked oil tankers at Bangladesh), ... about the unavoidable end of the world. Sorry, but I have to say it is already an average topic. You might be disappointed in me but I'm getting feel nothing special about this topic. I'm fed up how the American film directors and America itself are treating China. Because - of course - everything here is about China. About their terrible pollution, environmental politics, energy hunger, development spiral, and so on... Very traditional (average) story shown from a very traditional (average) point of view. As I said nothing's new. Like some broken recored.
But the biggest problem is not the average approach but something else.
Somebody should finally answer honestly the question: who made China as we can see now? Who is responsible for their "hunger"? Who showed them how to consume (we need a car, that's basic, but "Oh my God what will happen when all the Chinese wants a car too?")? It's kinda funny how the Western world is trying to plant some guilty feeling into China about their globalizational processes, about their sudden growth. Which is more funnier that everybody knows that these rhetorical techniques are based on our afraids on China's growing economical greatness and importance - which means their growing political influence. These are the real questions, not the didactical (average) pictures which are trying to emotionalize these absolute rational questions via showing some direct (average) parallels for example between the very rich and the very poor Chinese people.
These so called honest and brave documentaries usually forget to find answers to these questions in the background (I mean they even forget to try). They are satisfied with their surface pictures and cliché-dramaturgy. They are effective just like the director's, Jennifer Baichwal's pictures. This time a film about Edward Burtynsky, a photographer who "undercovered" the "truth", next time coming somebody else, and we will pucker our brows and give maximum points on the imdb just to compensate our own guilty feelings.
I like the idea that we are frightened about the cheap Chinese products. "Made in China" is the devil itself. But we shouldn't forget that We, Europeans and Americans created the circumstances, we made the rules where China had only this chance to grow up next to us. We could label their country: "Made in Europe / USA."
Somehow I liked the "sad" (average) but talkative pictures about the useless electronic devices which are poisoning the Chinese soil. A camera was panning on them where you could easily read on one of the wrecked panels: "Made in Holland." (see the picture) So, what we really talking about?
Average point for an average film.
5/10
Posts
