Directed by Jia Zhangke, Caught by the Tides unfolds against the vast socio-economic transformations undergoing in China at the turn of the twenty-first century. During the pandemic, while revisiting footage he had shot over the past two decades, Jia assembled the film from his extensive personal archive. Drawing on material connected to his earlier works—Unknown Pleasures (2002), Still Life (2006), and Ash Is Purest White (2018)—alongside newly filmed pandemic-era scenes, he constructs what may be described as an archival drama capturing two decades of cinematic fragments.
At its centre is Qiaoqiao, played by Zhao Tao, whose silent yet expressive performance anchors the narrative. The story unfolds across three chapters, beginning in Datong, where Zhao falls in love with a short-time gangster, Bin, but then they drift apart as economic and personal currents pull them in different directions. Years later, we see her in Fengjie amid the upheaval caused by the Three Gorges Dam, navigating a disappearing landscape while witnessing entire neighbourhoods being dismantled. The final act, set during the COVID-19 pandemic, returns to a digitised Datong, where an aged Bin reappears. In the ‘tide’ of modern technologies like TikTok and AI robots, we see Qiaoqiao, hardened yet self-possessed, moving forward as cities are rebuilt and lives rerouted. What endures is the human capacity to persist and the forward motion of life.
The film had its world premiere at the 77th Cannes Film Festival and has won the Best International Film at the São Paulo International Film Festival, along with awards at the Valladolid International Film Festival (Seminci), Shanghai Film Critics Awards and Golden Kite Awards. Ultimately, Caught by the Tides is a must-watch—as it reconfigures the past not for nostalgia, but to interrogate how history inscribes itself on bodies, landscapes, and the moving image itself.