Few things in any culture carry as much ridiculousness and potency as its traditional beliefs. Left-Handed Girl introduces us to I-Jing, a endearing five-year-old who has just moved back to Taipei with her mother and older sister. She gets direct personal experience when her grandfather warns her for using her left hand for everything – it’s not natural, he insists; the devil’s influence, he claims.
As I-Jing gazes upon her limb with dismay, a new relationship forms between her and her so-called cursed hand while she explores city life. Shot entirely with iPhones, debut solo director and screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, along with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, summons the dynamic vibe and sensory experience of Taipei. Vibrant crimson Chinese characters cover 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 grimy buildings that nearly make you smell the unique atmosphere of a vibrant, humid city. It’s less a love letter from a fan as it is a dedication to a place known by heart. Tsou combines the kaleidoscopic fragments of the city with the splinters of imperfect people – movingly 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 submission 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 dropped out and works at a betel nut stall, where she’s sleeping with her boss. I-Jing, played by the very charming Nina Ye, starts a new school and, with the wonder only a child can have, tests out the potential of this newly labeled devil hand.
As she begins stealing trinkets at the night market with the cursed limb, 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 internal conflicts. Here, the film portrays the complexities between what a person feels obligated to and what she truly wants: Shu-Fen can’t untangle 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 advance; I-Jing is told to be present but silent.
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 theft, the excitement building with a camera shaky and beat staccato. The camera sweeps above as I-Ann rides her scooter at night, city lights shimmering 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 loneliness that comes with it – it’s at once intimate and heartbreaking 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 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 Performances
There are also moments of levity and fun, 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, expertly balances of an innocent child 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.
Climactic Scenes and Themes
By the dramatic 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 good – by that point, it’s like discovering a shocking, painful secret about a dear friend. Tsou and Baker’s script sharply examines what it really means to lose face: which shames are noble, which are indulgent, and what should be handed down from one generation to the next?
Some of these bombs are left unexcavated after the big showdown, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you dissatisfied – but perhaps also realizing that airing everything doesn’t mean closure or a tidy adage immediately follows, or that there will be a devil’s hand 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 released in select cinemas on November 14 and on digital services from November 28.
