Caught By the Tides isn’t your typical movie. It’s an assembly of previously shot footage directed by Jia Zhange-ke, all of them starring his wife, actress Tao Zhao, over three decades. In one aspect, these are the odds and ends, the unused trimmings from a career assembled into a singular narrative. In another, here are all the roads not taken while Jia and Tao were making Platform, Unknown Pleasures, The World, Still Life, 24 City, A Touch of Sin, Mountains May Depart, and Ash is Purest White.

Jia threads the footage through with a love story, which doesn’t exactly come together into a traditional narrative but does provide enough to connect the eras. A quarter of a century is a long time to cover, yet Jia manages to make the continuity feel compressed. There doesn’t seem to be a huge chasm of time between a young adult Tao dancing in the street to a pop song and the 40-year-old Tao encountering an assistive robot in a COVID-deserted mall.

Tides central thesis revolves around the Three Gorges Dam, which was constructed in the mid-2000s and flooded a dozen towns and displaced millions. They are interviewed in the movie, and all—save for one silent protestor—take the position of resignation and sacrifice rather than outcry.

In this respect, Jia does what he has done in his previous movies and documented a changing China. But not in a manner that relies on flat facts but through the landscape, the faces of the people, and Tao’s experience as she encounters them.

That gives Tides a refreshing quality, which is particularly true in the heads and tails of certain shots. These images are not perfectly framed and feel spontaneous. They’re jarring in a good sense and delightful that they’ve been included in a serious work.

Still, Caught by the Tides is a bit too much of a good thing. It’s inscrutable at times, accessible in others. If you’ve seen other Jia movies, then there will be moments that feel familiar, but that’s not really the point. I don’t think Caught By the Tides is supposed to feel like a compendium of Jia’s work up until now, but it kind of does. It feels like scrapbook cinema—a bonus feature rather than a standalone work.

Caught By the Tides (2024)
Directed by Jia Zhang-ke
Written by Jiahuan Wan, Jia Zhang-ke
Produced by Zhang Dong, Shôzô Ichiyama, Casper Liang Jiayan
Starring: Tao Zhao
Janus Films, Not rated, Running time 111 minutes, Premiered May 18, 2024 at the Cannes Film Festival

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