The Three Gorges Dam project in central China, projected for completion in 2009, was finally completed in 2015. The finished dam shoots up roughly 600 feet high and stretches roughly 1.5 miles wide. It became the largest electricity-generating facility in the entire world. But its creation involved the summoning of a massive lake, roughly 400 miles long, and the flooding of an area home to roughly one million people. Lauded Chinese director Jia Zhang-ke chose a personal and idiosyncratic approach to the Three Gorges. Still Life's title can be taken at least two ways: Life stilled, that is, destroyed, and/or life persisting in the face of unfathomable adversity.
The story starts out with Sanming (played by Han Sanming, the director's cousin who went into acting after working in a coal mine). Sanming is trying to find his long-estranged wife, as a precursor to finding the daughter he hasn't seen in years. Sanming's mild manner and matter-of-fact voice take him along the flooded landscape. Streets, neighborhoods, and sometimes whole towns that he knew, sit underwater now--and the dam project isn't finished yet.
He settles in, evades danger, finds work with men who are tearing down houses. We don't see any heavy-duty salvage operations. The order of business seems simply to tear down what society built up, so the new society can then wash everything away. Han finds friends and community with the band of men carrying out these seemingly absurd work orders. A second plotline emerges, this one centering on a woman, Shen Hong (Zhao Tao). She too comes looking for someone—in her case, a husband she hasn't seen in two years.
This film moves slowly, and you'll have to adapt to its slowness. Feel your way to its tempo, though, and be rewarded by sumptuous photography (courtesy Yu Likwai) constantly contrasting the macrocosm (boats, ferries, collapsing buildings, the floods both present and future-tense) with the microcosm (hope and fear and determination across faces; the smiles and wisecracks of the men as they smoke, drink, and gamble after a full day swinging sledgehammers). Watch closely and you'll also see a few absurd moments, thrown in, seemingly, to make sure you're still paying attention. But don't worry. You'll still be paying attention. Highly recommended.