''Umbrella'' or Sǎn is a Chinese documentary film directed by Du Haibin and released in 2007. The film documents the experiences of modern rural China, particularly five social groups: students, soldiers, tradespeople, and peasants. Du's stated goal with the film was to highlight the growing disparity between China's prosperous cities and its stagnating countryside.

Synopsis

''Umbrella'' is divided into five parts, one for each social group documented. The first takes place in

Zhongshan Zhongshan (; ) is a prefecture-level city in the south of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province, China. As of the 2020 census, the whole city with 4,418,060 inhabitants is now part of the Guangzhou–Shenzhen conurbation with 65,565,622 ...

, in

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

province at an industrial warehouse where poorly paid workers spend hours putting together umbrellas for sale. In another part of China, in

Yiwu Yiwu () is a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Jinhua in Central Zhejiang Province, East China. As of the 2020 census, the city had 1,859,390 inhabitants and its built-up (or metro) area, joined with that of the neighboring Dongy ...

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , Chinese postal romanization, also romanized as Chekiang) is an East China, eastern, coastal Provinces of China, province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable citie ...

province, a successful farmer has become an entrepreneur, running an umbrella manufacturing business. The film then shifts to

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

, as it follows students and recent graduates who struggle to find employment in a hyper-competitive market. The students know that failure to find a job will mean a return to their rural roots. The fourth part follows a People's Liberation Army garrison and new recruits. The recruits all come from farms in the countryside, looking for another life. The last part of the film takes place in

Luoyang Luoyang is a city located in the confluence area of Luo River and Yellow River in the west of Henan province. Governed as a prefecture-level city, it borders the provincial capital of Zhengzhou to the east, Pingdingshan to the southeast, Nanyang ...

Henan Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

province. It documents an elderly peasant in a village that consists mostly of the old and infirm, as subsequent generations seek their fortunes elsewhere.

Reception

''Umbrella'' was awarded an Honorable Mention at the 30th

Cinéma du Réel Cinéma du Réel (Cinema of the Real) is an international documentary film festival organized by the BPI-Bibliothèque publique d'information (Public Information Library) in Paris and was founded in 1978. The festival presents about 200 films per ye ...

International Documentary Film Festival in 2008. It has also screened at numerous film festivals, including Asian and documentary-film focused lineups. Most notable was its premiere at the 64th Venice International Film Festival as part of the Horizons Documentary program. It was one of three Chinese films in the program, along with Lü Yue's documentary-drama hybrid, '' The Obscure'', and

Jia Zhangke Jia Zhangke ( zh, c=贾樟柯, p=Jiǎ Zhāngkē, born 24 May 1970) .He is a Chinese-language film and television director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and writer. He is the dean of the Shanxi Film Academy of Shanxi Media College and the dea ...

's '' Useless''. Collectively, the three films were said to exemplify the "overwhelming sophistication in Chinese...documentary filmmaking."

References

External links

* * *
''Umbrella''
at the Chinese Movie Database {{DEFAULTSORT:Umbrella (Film) Chinese documentary films 2007 films 2000s Mandarin-language films Documentary films about China 2007 documentary films