Few things in any culture 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 warns her for using her left hand for everything – it’s not natural, he insists; it’s the devil at work, he claims.
As I-Jing gazes upon her hand with concern, a new connection forms between her and her so-called sinister hand while she navigates city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, first-time director and screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, along with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, captures the frenetic energy and sensory experience of Taipei. Bright red Chinese characters adorn the glass windows of a pawn shop; the cheerful tune of garbage trucks fills the air; the easy ping-pong of Mandarin and Taiwanese between generations; verdant foliage against aged structures that nearly evoke the scent the specific essence of a vibrant, humid city. It’s less a love letter from a fan as it is a dedication to a place deeply familiar. Tsou combines the vivid glimpses of the city with the complexities of flawed individuals – poignantly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and delivering a triumph of a film.
Family Dynamics and Inner Conflicts
The drama, Taiwan’s entry for best foreign language film at the Oscars, starts with I-Jing, her older sister, and her mom in a period of reconstruction. Thoughtful mom Shu-Fen has established a night market noodles stand, and the unpredictable I-Ann has dropped out 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 cursed limb, separating a right hand that does what’s required and the other that entertains what the heart desires, Tsou gracefully reflects each character’s own internal conflicts. Here, the film portrays the intricacies between what a person feels obligated to and what she genuinely desires: Shu-Fen can’t untangle 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 advance; I-Jing is told to be present but silent.
Cinematic Craft and Emotional Depth
Tsou, along with Baker as editor and Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao as cinematographers, skillfully lands us onto each family member’s separate planets, with many shots recording the lively and charming rhythms of daily Taipei life. We’re at the same height with I-Jing as she makes her first pilfering, the adrenaline rushing with a camera unsteady and beat staccato. The camera pans overhead as I-Ann rides her scooter at night, city lights glistening in the heat, bringing an boundless feeling of freedom with a pain that’s hers alone to feel.
A sense of duty is deftly woven into each dilemma, as well as the isolation that comes with it – it’s at once personal and heartbreaking to see how duty is often a lonely journey. We see it when I-Jing tries in sincerity to draw with her right hand, when I-Ann lays in bed after being mocked at an ex-classmate’s motel party. Meanwhile, Shu-Fen scrambles 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 Character Portrayals
There are also moments of levity and fun, 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, perfectly walks the tightrope of an young girl absorbing the financial realities and unknown entities – Shu-Fen’s ex, the grandma’s antics, I-Ann and Shu-Fen’s bickering – that surround her. Ma’s I-Ann, too, is a thoughtful 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.
Climactic Scenes and Central Ideas
By the soap opera-like penultimate dinner scene, the clan has nurtured big secrets that lead to the ultimate Taiwanese diu lian (losing of face): getting embarrassed in front of an audience. And the disclosures are good – by that point, it’s like uncovering a juicy, painful secret about a dear friend. Tsou and Baker’s script sharply examines what it really means to lose face: which disgraces are noble, which are self-serving, and what should be passed from one generation to the next?
Some of these bombs are left unexcavated after the big confrontation, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you dissatisfied – but perhaps also understanding that blowing it all up doesn’t mean resolution or a tidy adage 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 certain theaters on 14 November and on digital services from 28 November.