Few things in any society carry as much absurdity and power as its superstitions. Left-Handed Girl introduces us to I-Jing, a endearing five-year-old who has recently relocated back to Taipei with her mother and older sister. 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 evil, he claims.
As I-Jing examines her appendage with worry, a new bond forms between her and her so-called devil hand while she explores city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, debut solo director and co-writer Shih-Ching Tsou, together with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, summons the frenetic energy and sensory experience 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; lush trees against aged structures that nearly evoke the scent the unique atmosphere of a bustling, humid city. It’s not so much a love letter from a fan as it is a devotional to a place known by heart. Tsou pairs the kaleidoscopic fragments of the city with the splinters 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 story, Taiwan’s entry for best international feature film at the Oscars, starts with I-Jing, her older sister, and her mom in a period of reconstruction. Thoughtful mom Shu-Fen has set up a night market noodles stand, and the volatile I-Ann has left high school 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, tests out the potential of this newly anointed devil hand.
As she starts pocketing 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 skillfully 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 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 present but silent.
Visual Storytelling 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 delightful rhythms of daily Taipei life. We’re eye-level with I-Jing as she makes her first theft, the adrenaline rushing 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 uniquely hers to feel.
A sense of duty is deftly woven into each conundrum, as well as the isolation that comes with it – it’s at once intimate and saddening 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.
Lighter Moments and Character Portrayals
There are also touches of humor 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 a left-hander in real life, perfectly balances of an young girl absorbing the financial realities and unfamiliar forces – 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 inescapable but prohibitive emotion in an environment where everyone’s just trying to survive.
Climactic Scenes 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 powerful – by that point, it’s like uncovering a shocking, painful secret about a close companion. Tsou and Baker’s script keenly examines what it really means to be shamed: which shames are noble, which are indulgent, 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 wanting more – but perhaps also understanding that blowing it all up doesn’t mean resolution or a neat lesson immediately follows, or that there will be a sinister influence to blame. Instead, perhaps the city just awakens to another day, and, a little freer (having lost a little face), so do you.
- Availability: Left-Handed Girl is released in certain theaters on 14 November and on streaming platforms from November 28.
