Up the Yangtze

As the waters of the Three Gorges Dam rise, the towns along the Yangtze go under one by one. Yu Shui, the daughter of a poor family, starts work as a dishwasher on a tourist boat on the river instead of going to school. On the same boat another, more confident young person is working as a waiter. Western tourists come aboard to see the river as it last is. Yung Chang's documentary sets two worlds side by side: the tourists photographing from the deck, the children working below, and the families on the bank forced to leave their homes. More than a million people were displaced by the dam. The film does not condemn the dam in a single word; it only shows who is paying for it. It is a National Film Board of Canada production.