Colourful screens: Water imaginaries in documentaries from China and Taiwan

Abstract

The colours that appear in documentary films from China and Taiwan construct 'water imaginaries' with specific eco-critical connotations. Colourful screens are not only an instrument to show different aesthetics but they are also a device for interrogating the ecological relationship between humanity and water/nature. By giving a brief historical account of documentaries from mainland China and Taiwan concerning water networks, rivers and the sea, this article illustrates how the 'green screen' relates to the socialist ecology, how the 'colourless screen' isolates water from rivers to help imagine a national water network, how the 'blue screen' of the undersea world engenders a specific form of ecosophy, and finally how the 'black screen' of the transnational sea imaginary proposes and oscillates between inter-nationality and ecological post-nationality.