Rarely do elements 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 just moved back to Taipei with her mother and elder sibling. She gets direct personal experience when her grandfather admonishes her for using her left hand for everything – it’s not natural, he insists; the devil’s influence, he claims.
As I-Jing examines her hand with worry, a new bond forms between her and her so-called sinister hand while she adjusts to city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, first-time director and co-writer Shih-Ching Tsou, together with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, evokes the frenetic energy and sensory experience of Taipei. Vibrant crimson Chinese characters cover the glass windows of a pawn shop; the cheerful tune of trash-collecting trucks fills the air; the easy ping-pong of Mandarin and Taiwanese between generations; verdant foliage against aged structures that nearly make you smell the unique atmosphere of a bustling, humid city. It’s less a love letter from a fan as it is a devotional to a place deeply familiar. Tsou combines the kaleidoscopic fragments of the city with the complexities of imperfect people – movingly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and presenting a masterpiece of a film.
Family Dynamics and Personal Struggles
The story, Taiwan’s entry for best international feature film at the Oscars, starts 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 unpredictable 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 very charming Nina Ye, begins a new school and, with the wonder 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, separating a good hand that does what’s expected and the other that entertains what the heart desires, Tsou gracefully reflects each character’s own dualities. Here, the film delineates the intricacies between what a person feels obligated to and what she genuinely desires: Shu-Fen can’t free herself from her trash ex-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 capturing the frisky and charming 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 glistening in the heat, bringing an expansive feeling of freedom with a pain that’s hers alone to feel.
A sense of duty is deftly woven into each conundrum, as well as the isolation that comes with it – it’s at once personal and saddening to see how duty is often a lonely journey. We see it when I-Jing tries in earnest to draw with her right hand, when I-Ann rests in bed after being mocked at an ex-classmate’s motel party. Meanwhile, Shu-Fen struggles to make rent, her own mom annoyed 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 Performances
There are also moments of levity and playfulness, especially with the grandma’s bouts of anger, time with a meerkat that becomes I-Jing’s pet, and I-Jing’s general delight with the world. Ye, who is left-handed in real life, perfectly balances of an young girl absorbing the financial realities 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 sharp teenager dealing with grief, making it feel like an undeniable but unaffordable emotion in an environment where everyone’s just trying to survive.
Final Acts and Themes
By the soap opera-like penultimate dinner scene, the clan has developed big secrets that lead to the ultimate Taiwanese diu lian (losing of face): getting humiliated in front of an audience. And the revelations are good – by that point, it’s like discovering a juicy, painful secret about a close companion. Tsou and Baker’s script keenly examines what it really means to lose face: which shames are noble, which are self-serving, and what should be passed from one generation to the next?
Some of these revelations are left unresolved after the big showdown, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you dissatisfied – but perhaps also realizing that blowing it all up doesn’t mean closure or a neat lesson immediately follows, or that there will be a sinister influence to blame. Instead, perhaps the city just awakens to another day, and, a little lighter (having lost a little face), so do you.
- Availability: The film is available in certain theaters on 14 November and on digital services from November 28.
