Eternity and Drift

This ancient capital of the Southern Chu Kingdom is Jingzhou City, Hubei Province. During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, it served as the capital of the Chu Kingdom, “Ying.” Later, the Eastern Jin, Qi, and Liang dynasties also established their capitals here. Jingzhou prospered because of water, and also declined because of water. In the agricultural era, Jingzhou held a very important position in the Huguang region. Even during the Ming and Qing dynasties, when Wuchang had become the capital of Huguang, Jingzhou remained an important central city in the two lakes region. The devastating floods of 1998 completely destroyed the light industry of Shashi (Jingzhou).

Humanity has evolved from forests to tribes and then to reinforced concrete, enjoying both construction and destruction. It always seeks the most advantageous definition in ruins, yet disrespects this definition, continuing to use architectural wonders to showcase its unique character. Destruction and reconstruction cycle repeatedly, permeated by Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and overseas religions. Of course, regardless of the final definition, the people of this ancient capital have become accustomed to the eternal flow of time and the changing era.

The film is primarily composed of three color palettes: murky yellow, cool blue, and warm red. Murky yellow symbolizes turbidity and absurdity, cool blue symbolizes coldness and reality, and warm red symbolizes hope and tomorrow. These three colors create a surrealist atmosphere unique to the Jianghan Plain. Along the Yangtze River, there are elderly fishermen in the fog, young men searching for fossils, female winter swimmers swimming in the middle of the river, Douyin influencers on the bank, an unskilled violinist, icons in a Catholic church, children reciting ancient poems, sugar-blowing artists passing on intangible cultural heritage, and a wandering teenager in the sunset… Everyone is in their own comfort zone of illusion. What others might see as swagger or romanticism, they see as mere survival, and moments of relaxation during those intervals.

In the temple, workers, children with Down syndrome, devout monks, delivery drivers, and tourists gather before the Buddha to worship and chant scriptures. Of course, the lay practitioners also have their own opinions on the current state of Buddhism, while those outside the temple revisit past political and historical events. As demolitions deepen, amidst the anger of university students, people move into the new city to play the erhu, visit the zoo, fly kites, stroll through new streets, build new buildings, construct new districts, and imitate ancient architecture… yet they still cannot forget the path they came from and the hometown in their hearts. We hope that the present unbearable situation will become a sealed memory of the past, but the coldness or warmth of fire pulls us back to reality. In Taoist temples, people hope to ward off disasters and misfortunes through Taoist rituals, but the red memories of the past and the current land acquisition and demolition together construct a new, formatted memory for the elderly, children, and young people. In the old city, morning exercises, self-portraits, matchmaking, artistic sketches, square dancing, and street vendors depict the most ordinary scenes.

The dream of the little people is to become middle-class; the dream of the middle-class is to become great. The times not only dictate what each person possesses, but also what each person wants; the latter is the most essential dictation. The turbulent social changes have broken the previously relatively balanced order, making humanity’s pursuit of eternity more urgent and prominent, constituting an important proposition for the spiritual settlement of humankind. As human beings, we always measure ourselves by some things in the universe, using the scale of the universe to measure our dwelling place and our journey on the earth and under the sky. This may be the eternal meaning of human beings reflected in the changes of the old capital.