‘Total Trust’ Review: Jialing Zhang’s Documentary on China’s Surveillance Program Is an Eye-Opening Warning
variety.comMichael Nordine author While it’s hardly news that most of us are under some form of surveillance any time we’re in public, the extent of Big Brother’s activities still has the capacity to astound.
That’s nowhere truer than in the People’s Republic of China, whose efforts to monitor its citizens’ every action (public or otherwise) would make Orwell blush. “One Child Nation” co-director Jialing Zhang once again turns the camera on her home country in “Total Trust,” the kind of eye-opening documentary that makes you realize you know far less about its subject than you thought you did — however bad you may think China’s surveillance state is, Zhang can assure you it’s far worse.
Taking its title from a dubious news report claiming that public trust in the government reached a staggering 98% at the height of the pandemic, the film’s very existence runs counter to that claim.
It was made with the assistance of anonymous locals behind the camera and focuses on a number of female activists in front of it, including independent journalist Sophia Xueqin Huang.
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