Umbrella… (2007)

Directed by: Du Haibin | 93 minutes | documentary

‘Umbrella…’ stands out because of its sobriety: no music, no interviews, no voice-over and commentary. The documentary is nothing more or less than a record of the five traditional professions on which modern China is built: workers, peasants, soldiers, students and small sellers. The title refers to the umbrellas, which are a fairly loose thread in the story: the workers are the factory workers in an umbrella factory, the farmers have to collect their grain harvest before the rain and the small sellers are a few shopkeepers of the very many umbrella shops . With the soldiers and students, the umbrellas (or the lack of them in the pouring rain…) are pulled a little more by the hair.

Although the austerity of the documentary too often turns into dullness, the idea is nice: the changes China has undergone have repercussions on each of these professions. It offers many opportunities for workers and sellers, but the economic rise of China means for these people above all hard work for a minimum wage, while in the meantime they dream of a beautiful BMW. For the farmers, all the changes are almost exclusively negative: farming is actually no longer profitable. There is enough or even too much harvest, but it no longer yields anything. This is where the documentary comes into its own, also because it draws attention to an older farmer, who talks candidly about his difficult life.

It is a pity that such a slightly more in-depth form has not been chosen more often. For the rest, ‘Umbrella…’ is really just a collection of images of people: working in the factory, studying or crouching on the ground. This gives too limited and too monotonous a picture of the various positive and negative consequences for each professional group. A focus on one person within a certain group or a few interviews would have given the documentary a more personal and also more exciting character. Unfortunately, a good idea now lingers too much in bloodlessness.