Caught by the Tides

The film is glued together by Zhao, one of cinema’s most enthralling actors, accomplishing the herculean task of creating a coherent character out of multiple disparate and decades-old performances.

As past, present and future collide, much of Caught by the Tides might seem like what we have already seen in Zhangke's enviable body of work. Yet it has a freshness and power that is uniquely its own.

Jia Zhang-ke’s Caught by the Tides attests to the fact that making art under the most adverse conditions can prove to be serendipitous.

You could call it a movie about connection, but one fashioned out of shots of isolation.

It’s an achievement by turns fleeting and monumental: a series of interlocking time capsules, a wrenching feat of self-reflection, and a stealth musical.

This dreamy, arresting, dialogue-light latest from Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke is a poetic, musical and reflective portrait of one woman’s journey to find an old lover.

Caught by the Tides is among Jia’s most experimental and unconventional films. In terms of structure, the film transcends the standards established during the last three decades of Jia’s output, even while ruminating on the same basic themes.

There’s an indestructible link between past, present, and future in the film that makes us experience time and place in a peculiar, nostalgic way.

Jia Zhangke’s Caught by the Tides is the one that manages to weave a narrative that remains as mesmerizing as it is unconventionally-masterful.

Caught By The Tides is always an interesting watch, but mainly as an exercise in form and showing an evolving China.