River People (2009 film)

River People (水上人家) is a 2009 Chinese  film directed by He Jianjun (何建军)

Profile

• Movie: River People / 水上人家 (2009)
• Director: He Jianjun (何建军)
  
• Producer: Shan Dongbing (单东炳)
• Writer: He Jianjun (何建军)
  
• Cinematographer : Guo Zhirong (郭志荣) , Ma Ke (马克)
• Original Music : Zhang Yi (张毅)
• Release Date : April 2009
• Genre : Drama 
• Distributor:
• Language: Mandarin
• Country: China

Synopsis

 An extended family in Shanxi province follows a rhythmic cycle, established over generations. They live on boats and fish in the river until it ices over, then set up on land and run a restaurant during the long winter. Teenager Laba and his cousin Baowa would much rather bait lines and collect fish than study for school, yet Baowa worries over the intimations of a future as bleak as the river is muddy. He gravitates toward the trains he can hear in the distance but which he’s never had an opportunity to ride toward what he imagines must be better work in the city, but Baowa’s father has seen what life outside portends for his family and forbids his son to leave. Director He Jianjun, like his peers in the Sixth Generation such as Zhang Yuan and Jia Zhangke, shares an abiding interest in combining (or blurring) fiction and reality. He films the family—who seem to be playing approximations of themselves—in an observational style that reveals rather than structures the characters. He imbues the humble settings with a feeling of comfort and familiarity, but beyond the dark interiors of the boats that the fisherfolk call home is a creeping sense of foreboding. Equally threatening to the cultural lineage of the family is the encroachment of modernity, symbolized by the unceasing drone of DVD action movies and motorbikes. (Roger Garcia - http://fest09.sffs.org)

Stars

• Shan Jingtao, Shan Jingqin, Shan Haoshan, Shan Jinghua, Shan Jinglong, Xu Mingying, Shan Songshan, Shan Heishan, Shan Yunshan, Ji Guixia, Ji Guiyun, Shan Xiaoxing, Shan Guiying.

Reviews

• Teasingly halfway between documentary and fiction, "River People" limns the hardscrabble life of fishermen on China's Yellow River with a half-elegiac, half-realistic eye, from the p.o.v. of two teenage boys. (Derek Elley , Variety )
   

Awards

Timelines

Trailer