Amid the Destruction, Aftershocks of an Emotional Magnitude
'Fallen City' Examines the Consequences of an Earthquake
By MIKE HALE
July 27, 2014
During the three years Qi Zhao spent filming "Fallen City," he captured his subject — the town of Beichuan, wiped out in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, two-thirds of its people killed and 80 percent of its buildings destroyed — as it slowly disappeared. In time-lapse images, fields of rubble become fields of grass. Part of the old city is turned into an earthquake museum, with railings installed in front of piles of shattered concrete.
"Fallen City," showing Monday in PBS's "POV" series, looks both forward and back. It's a conventional aftermath story, following three families devastated by the earthquake as they deal with the emotional and logistical aftershocks: intense, sometimes paralyzing mourning along with the need to relocate while a new Beichuan is being built. But it's also an elegy for the former Beichuan, once a picturesque town nestled along a riverbank. Mr. Qi's subjects keep returning to the ruins to commune with their dead children, parents and siblings, and his camera lingers over the wreckage, turning the debris and the scattered buildings into misty brush paintings. (The cinematography was by Shaoguang Sun.)
Of the three stories, one, about a teenage boy, is touching but a little generic; his alienation can be attributed to his father's death in the quake, but you suspect he might have turned against school and parents regardless. One, about a civil servant who lost a daughter and three sisters, has the sort of unexpected twist that's a documentarian's dream. And the third, about the Pengs, a likable couple who lost their only child, is simply heartbreaking. A scene in which soldiers prevent them from re-entering the old town to visit the makeshift tomb they've built for their daughter is brutal in its despair.
Mr. Qi's background is in Chinese television, and "Fallen City," his first film as a director, is not the sort of formally inventive or tough-minded documentary associated with filmmakers like Wang Bing or Jia Zhangke. It's a bit slick in its mournfulness, and it tactfully avoids subjects like the efficacy of the government's response in the immediate aftermath of the quake. Mr. Qi makes clear, though, from his portrayal of the bleak new Beichuan and his inclusion of banal newscasts celebrating its construction that his sympathy lies with the survivors who sneak past guards and clamber over dangerous debris just to feel at home.
POV
Fallen City
On PBS stations on Monday night (check local listings).
Produced by NHK and ITVS International in association with IKON and American Documentary | POV. Directed and written by Qi Zhao; Michelle Ho and Peter Wintonick, executive producers; Mr. Qi and Lixin Fan, producers.
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