The documentary “Total Trust” enables a better understanding of the oft use phrase the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a “surveillance society” where Big Data and surveillance are attempted to be sold by the good comrades running the state apparatus as desirable for “public safety” and “good order” with a good dose of “foreign subversives” thrown in for good measure. Many citizens of the PRC enjoy a standard of living thought unattainable a few decades ago so they surrender political freedoms for economic stability and where each citizen has a social credit point system imposed on their life. Be a good citizen, do as you are told and God forbid never protest or petition the government or face a loss of points. The lower your social credit score is social privileges (or what we might refer to human rights) will be withdrawn or curtailed e.g. what schools your children can attend. There are 190 ways to gain points and 1040 ways to lose them. You are living in “a grid” with grid managers keeping extra vigilant tabs on malcontents “on a list” as directed by the good comrades.
Facial and biometric iris recognition and millions of surveillance cameras all pour individual data into Big Data servers so efficient that if are a “malcontent” any social media posts with your picture are removed and if you as the malcontent posted this picture your account will be terminated. George Orwell’s “1984” is thriving in the PRC. I recall seeing another documentary on China’s social management technology and yes there was Google in the thick of it helping the good comrades with their social management. Here in North America, we are only being spied on at this point for commercial gain and not thrown in prison.
In “Total Trust” the camera follows a journalist, a lawyer, his wife and son and a human rights activist who in the minds of the good comrades have challenged the government and they pay the price with imprisonment, torture, harassment and increased surveillance in a desperate attempt to keep the good comrades and their perpetual Supreme Leader in power.
China has never experienced democracy and given the revelations of “Total Trust” it appears unlikely it ever will.
Directed by Jialing Zhang.
Available on VOD/Digital as of 13February2024.
RKS 2024 Film Rating 91/100
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