RUES DE PÉKIN / BEIJING’S STREETS
Pablo Tréhin-Marçot | France 2008 | 82 Min. | OmeU
China took up this huge challenge: reshape the entire city of Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games. Official sources say that only 30% of the old Beijing is remaining after this big construction works.„Rues de Pékin“ offers a 12 parts documentary shot in this Old Beijing, just before the Olympics: the “vanishing Beijing”.Each part explores one theme, on peculiar aspect of the Old Beijing. The treatment is very simple. It is made in a way that the spectator can feel like he actually is in Beijing. Like a walker, you’re pacing up and down the streets and lanes, looking for the most traditional and yet alive Beijing. You’re stopping in front of a shoemaker fixing a shoe, an old man taking his bird to the park in a cage or men playing cards in the street.The movie catches an ancient time-space, far from the noises of construction works and ring roads and from the agitations of the shopping centers. The Beijing that were, that is but maybe won’t be anymore…
