Courtesy image.
Screening August 4, 2025 at 3:30pm and 6:30pm
CAUGHT BY THE TIDES
2025 China 1hr 51 minutes
Drama NR
In Mandarin, Chinese with English subtitles
The preeminent dramatist of China’s rapid 21st-century growth and social transformation,
Jia Zhang-ke has taken his boldest approach to narrative yet with his marvelous Caught by the Tides. Assembled from footage shot over a
span of 23 years—a beguiling mix of fiction and documentary, featuring a cascade of images taken from previous movies, unused scenes, and newly shot dramatic sequences–Caught by the Tides is a free-flowing work of unspoken
longing, carried along more by music than dialogue as it looms around the
edges of a poignant love story. The film mostly adheres to the perspective of
Qiaoqiao (Jia’s immortal muse Zhao Tao) as she wanders an increasingly
unrecognizable country in search of long-lost lover Bin (Li Zhubin), who left their
home city of Datong seeking new financial prospects. The always captivating
Zhao carries the film with her delicate expressiveness, while Jia constantly
evokes cinema’s ability to capture the passage of time and