Waves of Time

The Chinese cruise ship Royal Splendor once symbolized the country’s progress and prosperity. Now it is making its final voyage on the Yangtze—through the Three Gorges, between Chongqing in the west and Hubei in the east of China, passing nature and industry, towering cliffs and shipyards before reaching the Three Gorges Dam. Moving between the ship and the riverbanks, the film reveals a landscape where history continues to flow beneath the surface, and where the traces of a disappearing world remain hauntingly present.

Sequences of the world gliding past, their meditative quality enhanced by an experimental soundtrack, alternate with more straightforward scenes of the activities on board for the mostly 50-plus passengers, of the engine room, and of the work carried out by the crew. Then suddenly we find ourselves on dry land, among the dilapidated and abandoned apartment buildings. When the ship is at last guided through the imposing lock and its immense gates finally open again, it almost feels like a rebirth for the old ship.