Jia Zhang-ke has been one of the most consistently fascinating directors of the 21st century, time and again finding narrative pathways through history that continually get across deeply complex issues and events in a way that can be accessible for any viewer. It’s a remarkable gift, especially in a world that doesn’t really tend to boost voices that aren’t devoted to whatever the hegemonies of power used to be. Caught by the Tides is a fascinating tear through the past few decades of Chinese history, with both the Three Gorges Dam project (and its ceding of occupied land to human-engineered flooding) and the rise of COVID-19 seen as similar fracture points in the lives of China’s population. Tides uses isolated moments and unused footage shot for various Jia films since 2003 to create a new, parallel narrative that makes the passage of time into something very concrete, with a wry through line from flip phones to the rise of TikTok all the way to grocery store automata. This is the kind of global cinema that has the Seven Mountain Mandaters so freaked out, despite its very real sense of empathy and concern for the world and its horror at human, business-as-usual cruelty. See it while it’s still legal. Visit belcourt.org for showtimes for this one-week limited engagement. JASON SHAWHAN