A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces

Corona, Ground Zero: Wuhan am Jangtse, während des Lockdowns, davor und danach. Shengze Zhu montiert Impressionen aus ihrer Heimatstadt: eine Straßenkreuzung, an der sich nichts mehr rührt; das allabendliche Spektakel des Einschaltens der Skyline-Beleuchtung, gefilmt vom Flussufer gegenüber; Badende und Singende im diesigen Dunst; lärmende Baustellen allerorten. Stillstand – Bewegung. Bewegung – Stillstand. Dazu Briefe an Verstorbene – den Ehemann, die Oma, den Vater, den Bruder –, in denen all die verpassten Chancen beklagt werden, miteinander zu sprechen, einander wahrhaft kennenzulernen, füreinander da zu sein. Verlust und Veränderung. (Alexandra Seitz)

The city of Wuhan, notorious cradle of the Covid 19 disease, is built on the banks of the imposing Yangtze river. The gray color of its waters and its apparent calm survey human activities and worries with cold and majestic indifference, which stands in marked contrast to a city whose form and identity is constantly mutating.
Shot in a tone that allows us to feel how time works on places and memories, A RIVER RUNS, TURNS, ERASES, REPLACES is a moving trip back into the past; from the first images of a locked-down Wuhan in 2020 to views of a busy metropolis lost in its push for modernization. The opening images of a deserted road torn apart by the sounds of sirens haunt the film as images of an unconceivable reality until the end credits. As distant figures in the landscape, the people of Wuhan share with us letters to their loved ones who passed away in the pandemic. Through this beautiful combination of ideograms and landscapes, memories of those lost are interwoven with recollections of places and moments that will not return.
Via this delicate composition, director Shengze Zhu delivers a meditation on the changes that have hit our existence, mirroring China’s search for a balance between past and present. (Rebecca De Pas)

Zhu Shengze: OUT OF FOCUS (2014), ANOTHER YEAR (2016), PRESENT.PERFECT (2019)