Few things in any society carry as much absurdity and power as its superstitions. Left-Handed Girl introduces us to I-Jing, a sweet five-year-old who has recently relocated back to Taipei with her mother and older sister. She gets literal firsthand experience when her grandfather admonishes her for using her left hand for everything – it’s unnatural, he insists; it’s evil, he claims.
As I-Jing gazes upon her appendage with worry, a new relationship forms between her and her so-called devil hand while she explores city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, debut solo director and screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, along with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, summons the frenetic energy and sensory experience of Taipei. Vibrant crimson Chinese characters overtake the glass windows of a pawn shop; the pleasant melody of garbage trucks fills the air; the fluid exchange of Mandarin and Taiwanese between generations; verdant foliage against aged structures that nearly evoke the scent the unique atmosphere of a vibrant, wetter city. It’s less a love letter from a fan as it is a devotional to a place known by heart. Tsou pairs the vivid glimpses of the city with the splinters of imperfect people – poignantly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and presenting a masterpiece of a film.
Family Relationships and Personal Struggles
The drama, Taiwan’s entry for best foreign language film at the Oscars, begins with I-Jing, her older sister, and her mom in a period of reconstruction. Pensive mom Shu-Fen has established a night market noodles stand, and the volatile I-Ann has left high school and works at a betel nut stall, where she’s in a relationship with her boss. I-Jing, played by the utterly delightful Nina Ye, begins a new school and, with the curiosity only a child can have, experiments with the potential of this newly anointed devil hand.
As she begins stealing trinkets at the night market with the forbidden hand, distinguishing a right hand that does what’s required and the other that entertains what the heart desires, Tsou skillfully reflects each character’s own dualities. Here, the film delineates the intricacies between what a person feels duty-bound to and what she truly wants: Shu-Fen can’t free herself from her former husband’s debts; I-Ann feels reduced to the role her mom wants her to play as she watches her peers move forward; I-Jing is told to be seen and not heard.
Cinematic Craft and Emotional Resonance
Tsou, along with Baker as editor and Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao as cinematographers, skillfully lands us onto each family member’s individual worlds, with many shots recording the frisky and delightful rhythms of daily Taipei life. We’re eye-level with I-Jing as she makes her first pilfering, the adrenaline rushing with a camera shaky and beat staccato. The camera pans overhead as I-Ann rides her scooter at night, city lights shimmering in the heat, bringing an expansive feeling of freedom with a pain that’s uniquely hers to feel.
A sense of duty is expertly integrated into each conundrum, as well as the loneliness that comes with it – it’s at once personal and saddening to see how duty is often a solitary experience. We see it when I-Jing tries in sincerity to draw with her right hand, when I-Ann rests in bed after being scorned at an ex-classmate’s motel party. Meanwhile, Shu-Fen scrambles to make rent, her own mom irritated she needs help yet again. “A married daughter’s like water that’s poured out,” says the grandma; a son would have still been her responsibility.
Moments of Light and Character Portrayals
There are also touches of humor and playfulness, especially with the grandma’s flashes of indignation, time with a meerkat that becomes I-Jing’s pet, and I-Jing’s general joy with the world. Ye, who is left-handed in real life, expertly balances of an young girl absorbing the economic pressures and unknown entities – Shu-Fen’s ex, the grandma’s hijinks, I-Ann and Shu-Fen’s arguments – that surround her. Ma’s I-Ann, too, is a considered portrait of an acerbic teenager dealing with grief, making it feel like an inescapable but unaffordable emotion in an environment where everyone’s just trying to survive.
Final Acts and Central Ideas
By the soap opera-like second-to-last dinner scene, the clan has nurtured big secrets that lead to the ultimate Taiwanese diu lian (losing of face): getting humiliated in front of an audience. And the revelations are powerful – by that point, it’s like uncovering a shocking, painful secret about a close companion. Tsou and Baker’s script keenly examines what it really means to be shamed: which shames are noble, which are self-serving, and what should be handed down from one generation to the next?
Some of these revelations are left unexcavated after the big showdown, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you dissatisfied – but perhaps also understanding that airing everything doesn’t mean resolution or a neat lesson immediately follows, or that there will be a devil’s hand to blame. Instead, perhaps the city just wakes up to another day, and, a little freer (having lost a little face), so do you.
- Release Information: The film is released in select cinemas on November 14 and on digital services from November 28.
