Few things in any culture carry as much absurdity and potency as its traditional beliefs. This Taiwanese drama introduces us to I-Jing, a endearing five-year-old who has just moved back to Taipei with her mother and elder sibling. She gets literal firsthand experience when her grandfather admonishes 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 examines her appendage with worry, a new bond forms between her and her so-called cursed hand while she navigates city life. Shot entirely with iPhones, first-time director and screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, along with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, captures 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; lush trees against grimy buildings that nearly evoke the scent the specific essence of a vibrant, wetter city. It’s less a tribute from a fan as it is a devotional to a place known by heart. 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 masterpiece of a film.
Family Relationships and Personal Struggles
The drama, Taiwan’s entry for best international feature film at the Oscars, begins with I-Jing, her older sister, and her mom in a rebuild stage. Pensive 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, starts 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, separating a good hand that does what’s required and the other that entertains what the heart desires, Tsou skillfully reflects each character’s own internal conflicts. Here, the film delineates the complexities between what a person feels obligated to and what she truly wants: Shu-Fen can’t free herself from her trash ex-husband’s debts; I-Ann feels relegated 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.
Visual Storytelling and Emotional Resonance
Tsou, along with Baker as editor and Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao as cinematographers, skillfully places us onto each family member’s separate planets, 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 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 feeling of responsibility is deftly woven into each conundrum, as well as the isolation that comes with it – it’s at once personal 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 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 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 joy with the world. Ye, who is a left-hander in real life, expertly walks the tightrope of an innocent child absorbing the financial realities and unfamiliar forces – Shu-Fen’s ex, the grandma’s hijinks, I-Ann and Shu-Fen’s bickering – that surround her. Ma’s I-Ann, too, is a considered portrait of an sharp 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 developed big secrets that lead to the ultimate Taiwanese diu lian (losing of face): getting humiliated in front of an audience. And the disclosures are good – by that point, it’s like uncovering 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 honorable, 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 showdown, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you dissatisfied – but perhaps also understanding that airing everything 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 lighter (having lost a little face), so do you.
- Availability: Left-Handed Girl is released in certain theaters on November 14 and on digital services from November 28.
