Many Undulating Things(HKAFF 2019)

Hong Kong and its unique urban geography – gleaming skyscrapers, expansive malls, overpopulated housing estates – is given stirring focus in this rhythmic, politicallycharged documentary. Beginning and ending elliptically in a shopping center, Many Undulating Things finds poetry in motion, from the droning whir of escalators, through water flowing from artificial fountains, and onwards to the bustle of people navigating busy streets. Filmmakers Bo Wang and Pan Lu play with form, image and sound to make connections between Hong Kong’s ever-changing topography, its colonial past and its contentious future. What emerges is a document of a place and a people swinging endlessly between East and West, pushed forward by globalization and capitalism, compelled to transform itself again and again.