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| Director Elizabeth Lo |
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| The director on the set |
MISTRESS DISPELLER C+ China USA (94 mi) 2024 d: Elizabeth Lo
Everyone agreed to participate both at the beginning and end of production, as their understanding of the film and mistress dispeller’s role evolved over time. —opening title card
Teacher Wang taught me a lot. About love, and other things. She said, “Look, you are going through this, this difficulty, and we should film it, so more women, more people, can face their families and learn how to handle a situation like this…” I want more people to know that love doesn’t come easy, especially for people at our age. Don’t give up so easily. —Mrs. Li
While the premise of this documentary is interesting, where the latest Chinese phenomena is hiring someone to officially drive philandering husbands away from their mistresses and back to the fold of the family, yet this one-note subject matter quickly grows tiring, as little is actually learned in this rather light-hearted exposé. Easily what works best are the operatic inclusions of Puccini musical excerpts, Gianni Schicchi: O, mio babbino caro YouTube (2:22) and Madame Butterfly: Humming Chorus YouTube (3:05), which are emotionally powerful, but most of the film falls flat, despite some rather absurd stabs at humor, as nothing is ever explored in-depth, remaining superficially on the surface for the entire film, so not much is actually learned, though the absence of emotional outbursts or angry confrontations does make the detached, cinéma vérité style more plausible. One character (Mrs. Li) even acknowledges at one point that she might have acted differently if the camera had not been there. While the psychological intent makes more sense in theory, attempting to steer the various parties in certain directions, the reality is never satisfying, as we see no evidence of what is proposed. This is a very ambiguous film, leaving viewers a bit perplexed, shining little light on this unusual profession. While the culture on display is Chinese, filmed with actual participants in China, the approach feels more American, arising out of the Sundance Institute Producer’s Program, so it’s a bit of a mixed bag. While a few scenes feel scripted, like bringing in the film crew on camera during a particularly pertinent moment, the fact that this is a straightforward documentary with so little dramatic impact just makes it harder to take seriously, where a differently edited or fictionalized version of tonal shifts might have been more compelling, throwing in scenarios that were simply missing from what we see onscreen, where the quiet lyricism of filmmaker Hong Sang-soo comes to mind. For instance, we learn next to nothing about the marital relationship or their family, which seems to exist in a vacuum, so viewers gain little insight as to why this relationship needs to be saved, though separation is not an option due to the wealth the husband brings. The marriage is not close, exhibiting little intimacy, where instead of any romantic connection, love is bound up with sacrifice, duty, and what’s left unspoken, so there’s no reason to suspect that will change in the future, despite the intervention, so in the end they seem no better off.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, the director graduated from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, with a Masters in Fine Arts from Stanford University, having been exposed as a youth to pop culture and movie ideals of romance, which drastically differs from the world of China portrayed in this film. Up until now she has primarily been a director of shorts, making one earlier feature, STRAY (2020), an uncompromising social realist film that offers a dog’s-eye view of Istanbul, inviting viewers into their immersive world, continually providing the spatial point of view of stray dogs on the street. This, on the other hand, is all about a philosophical concept, a social theory, which the filmmaker attempts to bring to life, with varying degrees of success. Filmed over the course of two years, where Lo is not just the director, but also the cinematographer and co-editor on the film, the actual subjects feel authentic enough, where the problem is we just never learn very much about them, feeling more like strangers both in the beginning and at the end of the picture. As we drop into their lives, there’s no real examination of cheating husbands, or this unconventional profession, so we’re left with what we see onscreen, which shows people going through the mundane aspects of their lives, more often bored with their routines, as what they’ve grown accustomed to is the emptiness of their existence, where the promise of middle class comforts has not brought any of them happiness. Shifting our sympathies between the husband, wife, and mistress, often using a static camera position, the film uses a crisis of infidelity to explore the ways emotion, pragmatism, and cultural norms collide to shape romantic relationships in contemporary China, often involving secrecy and shame, though a more interesting and largely untold aspect is exploring how women navigate Chinese society. At the center of the story is Teacher Wang (Wang Zhenxi), whose undercover presence attempts to influence the various participants, the middle aged marital couple, Mr. and Mrs. Li, along with the younger mistress Fei Fei, who is attractive, though more economically challenged, yet she confidently expects Mr. Li will choose her in the end, and may have even thought she was the central figure of the shooting, openly expressing a deep longing for love and commitment. When Mrs. Li suspects her husband’s inexplicable absences are not just due to extended business meetings, she hires the dispeller to save her marriage, as in her grown-up child’s eyes they have the “perfect” family.
Presumably documenting all sides of the love triangle, neither Mr. Li nor his mistress exhibit any signs of guilt or regret, finding nothing morally wrong with their behavior, while Mrs. Li is simply angry and indignant, yet neither she nor her husband have the capacity to speak about this issue with each other, so it simply festers over time, revealing episodic glimpses of a disintegrating marriage, including tense bickering at the dinner table, or paranoia surrounding cellphone usage, where they are not at all averse to intercepting texts and messages. While this may be a sociographic reflection of a society undergoing cultural shifts from rigid social norms, it’s hard to get past the element of romantic resignation, the examination of a love story without any signs of love, though Mrs. Li claims that they were once the envy of their friends (who we never see). Viewers may be a bit skeptical about this so-called profession, where many may be inclined to believe it exists along the same wavelength as psychic readings, where there is little scientific evidence to offer credibility. Apparently this extramarital industry has only blossomed in the last ten years in China, largely due to rising rates of adultery, along with a growing economy, creating rapidly expanding middle and upper classes and a rising divorce rate, leaving people with options that never existed before, where technology and shifting values play a huge role in reshaping modern ideas on love and marriage. By holding shots on faces for unconventionally long durations, one can gauge the levels of loneliness and regret that lie under the surface, as people struggle with their shortcomings, yet it’s hard to believe Mr. Li would confess his infidelity to a complete stranger, “With my wife it’s real life, with Fei Fei it’s like being in the sun,” or allow this dispeller, disguised as a distant friend of the family, into his inner sanctum, where that absurdity reaches comic heights by the end. But it all feels more like people gossiping endlessly about their frustrations in life, as the marital problems are never approached directly, feeling more like a manipulative con job, where professional credentials are produced to take money from wealthy families, presuming they’ll be happy about the outcome. By the end, however, there is simply no evidence that anyone is happy except the dispeller, who does not come cheap, paid in the tens of thousands for her services, who is the only one who has profited from the experience. Inexplicably, despite the shortcomings, this film won the Best Documentary at the Chicago Film Festival 2024, Festival Award Winners - Cinema Chicago.
