Rarely do elements in any society 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 recently relocated 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 unnatural, he insists; it’s the devil at work, he claims.
As I-Jing examines her hand with concern, a new relationship forms between her and her so-called devil hand while she adjusts to city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, debut solo director and screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, along with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, evokes 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 fluid exchange of Mandarin and Taiwanese between generations; lush trees against aged structures that nearly make you smell the specific essence of a bustling, humid 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 splinters of flawed individuals – poignantly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and delivering a triumph of a film.
Family Dynamics 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 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 sleeping 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 right hand that does what’s required and the other that pursues what the heart desires, Tsou gracefully reflects each character’s own dualities. Here, the film delineates the complexities between what a person feels obligated to and what she genuinely desires: Shu-Fen can’t free herself from her former 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 Depth
Tsou, along with Baker as editor and Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao as cinematographers, skillfully places us onto each family member’s individual worlds, with many shots capturing the lively 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 unsteady and beat staccato. The camera sweeps above 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 loneliness that comes with it – it’s at once intimate and heartbreaking 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 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.
Lighter Moments 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 a left-hander in real life, expertly 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 arguments – that surround her. Ma’s I-Ann, too, is a thoughtful portrait of an acerbic 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 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 embarrassed in front of an audience. And the revelations are good – by that point, it’s like uncovering a juicy, painful secret about a dear friend. Tsou and Baker’s script keenly examines what it really means to be shamed: which shames are honorable, which are indulgent, and what should be handed down 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 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: The film is released in certain theaters on 14 November and on streaming platforms from 28 November.
