Few things in any society carry as much absurdity 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 elder sibling. She gets literal firsthand experience when her grandfather scolds her for using her left hand for everything – it’s unnatural, he insists; the devil’s influence, he claims.
As I-Jing examines her limb with worry, a new relationship forms between her and her so-called sinister hand while she adjusts to city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, first-time director and co-writer Shih-Ching Tsou, together with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, summons the frenetic energy and sensory immersion of Taipei. Bright red Chinese characters overtake 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; verdant foliage against aged structures that nearly make you smell the specific essence of a vibrant, humid city. It’s less a love letter from a fan as it is a devotional to a place deeply familiar. 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 Relationships and Personal Struggles
The story, 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. Thoughtful 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, begins a new school and, with the wonder only a child can have, experiments with the potential of this newly labeled devil hand.
As she starts pocketing trinkets at the night market with the forbidden hand, separating a good hand that does what’s required and the other that pursues 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 truly wants: 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 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 individual worlds, with many shots capturing the lively and charming 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 abrupt. The camera pans overhead as I-Ann rides her scooter at night, city lights glistening in the heat, bringing an boundless feeling of freedom with a pain that’s uniquely hers to feel.
A sense of duty is expertly integrated into each conundrum, as well as the isolation 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 earnest 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 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 joy with the world. Ye, who is left-handed in real life, expertly walks the tightrope 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 arguments – that surround her. Ma’s I-Ann, too, is a thoughtful portrait of an sharp teenager dealing with grief, making it feel like an inescapable but prohibitive emotion in an environment where everyone’s just trying to survive.
Final Acts 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 revelations are powerful – by that point, it’s like discovering a juicy, painful secret about a close companion. Tsou and Baker’s script sharply examines what it really means to lose face: which disgraces are honorable, which are indulgent, and what should be passed from one generation to the next?
Some of these revelations are left unexcavated after the big showdown, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you wanting more – 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 sinister influence to blame. Instead, perhaps the city just awakens to another day, and, a little lighter (having lost a little face), so do you.
- Availability: Left-Handed Girl is available in select cinemas on 14 November and on streaming platforms from November 28.
