A son dreams of returning to his hometown of Chongqing – a place also fondly remembered by his mother. But due to her age (90 years old) and health, she cannot return. He’ll have to make the journey himself (from Jiangsu) and report back, perhaps allowing her to live the experience vicariously. In actuality, thanks to technology, she’ll be able to video chat from more than 900 miles away, with clear picture and sound, in real time.

Within a couple of transition shots, he’s there in Southwestern China, climbing stairs, listening to traveling instructions, and visiting a haircutter, who comments on life in the villages and cities. Though the actual roads from his childhood are no longer there, many of the structures and paths are familiar (numerous poorer areas have long since been demolished for renewal and updates, with Chongqing in particular undergoing rapid transformation through the Third Front project – a speed contrastingly absent from this production). But the people haven’t changed; many of them are old friends, who reminisce about the times before the Cultural Revolution (Mao Zedong’s policy to preserve Chinese socialism).

Like the paintings of the son, shown intermittently, the cityscape is gray, bleak, and sprawling, but also calming in an inexplicable way – channeling some of the sci-fi environments from postapocalyptic pictures like “Blade Runner,” while also reflecting a cheery, cartoonish quality like in children’s anime when his sketchbook doodles are revealed. More than the sights, it’s the salt-of-the-earth folks who appear most grounded and tranquil; this is a study of eerily peaceful locales (including a nuclear reactor site tour) teeming with equally unruffled citizenry. And the narrator – the son – who answers questions posed to him by his own unseen daughter (the filmmaker, Yumeng He), is delightfully insightful, placidly offering up philosophical observations on the swiftness of societal advancements and ever-present documentation that betray a world of hasty forgetfulness. Though quick and only cursory in its examinations, it’s remarkably profound; this short subject is practically an ode come to serene, visual life.

– Mike Massie