If you haven't already, watch this for Maggie Gyllenhaal, who sells the film every second she's on screen, and does remarkable, often understated, full-body acting.

( The rest of my comments, below, are at best half-baked. I may come back to this when I've thought some more. )

Princeofcairo and Robin Laws have already taglined this, so I won't dwell on it as much as I was going to:

"Never has the uselessness of the forces of order seemed so brutal and so cruel." princeofcairo

"unflinching exploration of its theme: the staggering incompetence of official authority... a clueless indifference bordering on the malign"
Robin ( Read more... )

Saw Up the Yangtze last night. I think it's accurately described as a docu-drama: it's effective, smart and packs a restrained but powerful punch. OTOH, it entirely dodges any discussion of the wider impacts of the 3 Gorges Dam: there's no attempt to expand the film beyond the kind of first-visual-impressions take on one family and one cruise ship ( Read more... )