Few things in any culture carry as much ridiculousness and potency as its traditional beliefs. Left-Handed Girl introduces us to I-Jing, a sweet five-year-old who has recently relocated back to Taipei with her mother and older sister. She gets literal firsthand experience when her grandfather warns her for using her left hand for everything – it’s not natural, he insists; it’s evil, he claims.
As I-Jing stares at her hand with worry, a new connection forms between her and her so-called cursed hand while she navigates city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, debut solo director and screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, together with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, captures the dynamic vibe and sensory immersion of Taipei. Vibrant crimson Chinese characters overtake 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 aged structures that nearly evoke the scent the specific essence of a vibrant, wetter city. It’s not so much a tribute from a fan as it is a devotional to a place known by heart. Tsou combines the kaleidoscopic fragments of the city with the complexities of flawed individuals – movingly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and presenting a triumph of a film.
Family Dynamics and Personal Struggles
The drama, Taiwan’s entry 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 in a relationship with her boss. I-Jing, played by the very charming Nina Ye, starts a new school and, with the curiosity 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, distinguishing a right hand that does what’s expected and the other that pursues 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 genuinely desires: Shu-Fen can’t untangle 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 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 separate planets, with many shots capturing the frisky and delightful rhythms of daily Taipei life. We’re eye-level with I-Jing as she makes her first pilfering, the excitement building with a camera shaky and beat abrupt. 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 uniquely hers to feel.
A feeling of responsibility 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 lays in bed after being scorned 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.
Moments of Light and Performances
There are also touches of humor 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 a left-hander in real life, expertly balances of an young girl absorbing the economic pressures and unfamiliar forces – 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 prohibitive emotion in an environment where everyone’s just trying to survive.
Climactic Scenes and Themes
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 disclosures are good – by that point, it’s like discovering a shocking, painful secret about a close companion. Tsou and Baker’s script sharply examines what it really means to lose face: which disgraces are noble, which are indulgent, and what should be passed from one generation to the next?
Some of these revelations are left unexcavated after the big confrontation, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you wanting more – but perhaps also realizing that blowing it all up doesn’t mean resolution or a neat lesson 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: Left-Handed Girl is available in select cinemas on 14 November and on digital services from November 28.
