A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces

Complete first draft written for In Review Online.

At this present stage in the coronavirus pandemic, when the perception is that things are swiftly getting better both in the United States and around the world, it is no surprise that the first of presumably numerous documentaries devoted to the topic have begun to arrive. These are largely works that adhere to the common conception of documentary filmmaking as that of conveying some objective truth, of capturing moments and answering questions about how this series of calamities happened. While this can indeed result in incisive and interesting work, it is by no means the only means of engagement, especially with a topic as all-encompassing as COVID-19. To help fill that gap, there is Shengze Zhu’s A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces, which premieres in the Forum section of this year’s Berlin Film Festival. Her last film was the daring and compassionate Present.Perfect. (2019), which solely used footage from various Chinese livestreamers in order to capture new, developing forms of self-expression and connection for the marginalized, and with River Runs, she applies that same precision and rigor to an even more contemporary topic. Zhu herself is from Wuhan, the Chinese city where novel coronavirus was first discovered, and where the entirety of River Runs is filmed, but any preconceptions of an exposé or explainer piece are quickly dispelled with the opening sequence, comprised of seven minutes of traffic camera footage from February 8-April 4, 2020, showing the gradual progression from total lockdown to comparative bustle. This is as close as Zhu comes to showcasing a governmental response to the crisis, and indeed coronavirus/COVID-19 is never mentioned by name in the entire film. Instead, River Runs takes place in the aftermath, or what one might deem the aftershocks of such a widespread crisis. Eschewing the dominant close-ups and constant patter of her previous film, Zhu only uses extreme long shots which contain no dialogue whatsoever, filming numerous locales within Wuhan. She especially focuses on large-scale construction, towering bridges, and above all the banks of the Yangtze river, which floods near the end of the film. With a few exceptions, all of the locations are largely empty, with solitary figures dwarfed in the frame, as much a result of Zhu’s camera angles as of a general social distancing decree: in one scene a soccer match can be heard just off screen, and the players and the ball occasionally intrude at the very bottom of the frame. In what might seem like an “objective” mix of cityscapes, River Runs introduces a devastating device, presenting four letters written by Zhu and based on true stories from four grieving people, addressed to a husband, a grandmother, a father, and an older brother, respectively, all of whom died from coronavirus. These letters are presented silently, placing a line of handwritten Chinese characters on screen one at a time, each detailing the often-mundane sadness with which each person is dealing, one that extends into such mundane moments as chopping a chicken or swimming in the river. The third letter in particular is presented in a different manner, in typed-out characters, and provides such a clear purpose for the documentary — the writer was unaware of her father’s affinity for the very bridges that form such a large bulk of the construction and backdrops — that I thought that it was Zhu’s own story. While this is not the case, it goes some way in detailing the ache of the film, the emotion that infuses the lonely, decaying buildings and shores. Through it all, the rapid development that epitomizes China in the 21st century continues, and it’s entirely to Zhu’s credit that she refuses to graft on the hopelessly tangled politics of this pandemic, to lean into unthinking praise or sprawling critique. Instead, she burrows to the heart of the daily struggle, the loneliness and discomfort with which the vast majority of people have been living in this crisis. By mapping that onto the specifics of a central city and its inhabitants, River Runs charts the present state of existence with stunning, heartbreaking clarity.