Caught by the Tides follows Qiaoqiao (Jia Zhangke’s immortal muse, Zhao Tao) as she wanders an increasingly unrecognizable China in search of long-lost lover Bin (Li Zhubin), who left their home city of Datong seeking new financial prospects. The always captivating Zhao carries the film with her delicate expressiveness, while Jia constantly evokes cinema’s ability to capture the passage of time and the persistence of change: of people, landscapes, cities, politics, ideas.
