Chaiqian (Demolition)

Demolition is a portrait of urban space, migrant labor, and ephemeral relationships in the center of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in western China. Attending first to the formal dimensions of the transforming worksite - including the demands of physical labor and the relationship between human and machine - the film shifts focus to the social dynamics of a group of thirty men and women who have come from the countryside to work in this ever-changing urban landscape. In exploring the various banal yet striking interactions between these members of China's "floating population," the city's residents, and the filmmaker, Demolition simultaneously expresses and resists the fleeting nature of urban experience.