Image Credit score: Netflix
From Le Pacte and Government Producer Sean Baker (Anora), Left-Handed Lady is the solo directorial debut from veteran producer Shih-Ching Tsou (Tangerine, The Florida Challenge). Acquired by Netflix following its debut at Cannes’ Critics Week, the movie is yet one more Awards season contender for the streamer after it was formally chosen by Taiwan as their Finest Worldwide Function nominee for the Academy Awards.
Co-written by Tsou & Baker, their first script collaboration since 2004’s Take Out, the story follows a single mom Shu-Fen and her two daughters, I-Jing & I-Ann, as they try to restart their lives as they relocate to Taipei and open a noodle stall on the buzzing evening market. Returning to town after a number of years within the countryside, the household strives to adapt to the challenges of their new atmosphere and keep unified. However when their conventional grandfather forbids the youngest of Shu-Fen’s kids to make use of her dominant left hand, or as he deems it “the satan’s hand”, generations of household secrets and techniques begin to unravel.
The movie stars Janel Tsai (The Fierce Spouse) as Shu-Fen, Shih-Yuan Ma because the eldest daughter I-Ann, & Nina Ye because the youthful daughter I-Jing.
Shot solely on iPhone, Left-Handed provides an intimate & immersive perspective of a vibrant metropolis, a slowly evolving tradition, and a household struggling to steadiness between them.
The movie is commonly shot from the attitude of the youngest daughter I-Jing, seeing town anew not like her older sister and mom who’ve a historical past & household issues that shade their view. I-Jing sees this new place as magical, a bubbly & brightly lit playground of experiences and other people she’s by no means encountered. She’s additionally assembly her mom’s household for the primary time, absorbing their outdated cultural touchstones and their shared disappointment in how Shu-Fen turned out regardless of their very own hypocrisies & ethical ambiguity. I-Jing internalizes these emotions and world views to color her instant household with a way of financial desperation and poor character that she by no means had earlier than. It’s no coincidence that her “satan hand” steals what she needs however can’t afford.
Shu-Fen has felt this manner for a very long time. When the digital camera turns to her, it’s all the time as a worn down lady preventing towards the present. Dragged down by the emotional, bodily, & monetary burdens of an abusive ex-husband they needed to escape, she’s continuously taking up water and placing her personal wants & wishes in jeopardy. Stigmatized & scandalized as an unwed mom in a patriarchal society, Shu-Fen can’t even achieve help among the many girls in her circle of relatives; they reject her as a spouse who did not make issues work, and it’s not their drawback after marrying her off.
Caught in between is I-Ann, a younger lady who was pressured to drop out of college in Taipei after they fled to the countryside. A as soon as thriving pupil who was widespread amongst her friends is now seeing town for its grittier underbelly; she is consistently harassed by males, working a low-class job with a sketchy boss whom she turns into concerned with sexually. Indignant on the world, indignant at her mom for overlaying her father’s shortcomings, and indignant at herself for not taking over her personal obligations, I-Ann is the vocal resistance to what her mom has develop into, placing the boys in her life on discover for his or her reprehensible conduct and making an attempt to cleanse their life to allow them to transfer ahead.
Image: Netflix
These 3 uniquely intertwined views come crashing collectively within the movie’s explosive, bombshell-laden finale that lastly units the trio free from the shackles of cultural & familial expectations, private secrets and techniques, and the toxicity of the boys of their orbit.
For author/director Shih-Ching Tsou, Left-Handed Lady is a love letter to her former residence, but additionally a shot throughout the bow to the tradition that raised her. Researched, cultivated, & crafted with care, Tsou takes her expertise in working with Sean Baker, telling tales about small communities and integrating their on a regular basis lives into the material of their screenplays, and weaving it into the reflections of her youth to make one thing wholly her personal; creating characters that aren’t solely a mirrored image of her personal battles however people who nonetheless persist right this moment after many years away. The entire wrong-footed stigmas towards unwed girls, the entire hurt brought on by outdated considering, the entire patriarchal traditions that go away girls who function with out them behind – this story rejects all of them in a superbly intimate portrait of survival.
Watch Left-Handed Lady If You Favored
- The Florida Challenge
- Tangerine
- Take-Out
MVP of Left-Hand Lady
Author/Director Shih-Ching Tsou
In my dialog with Tsou, I used to be left with the impression that she just isn’t your odd trendy director, neither is this your odd trendy movie. Studying side-by-side with Sean Baker for many years, they created a system to make genuine tales from the bottom up; engaged on actual places, casting folks off the streets of the communities they’re serving, & mixing the well-observed particulars of those communities into the framework of their screenplays. To reinforce this technique additional, Left-Handed Lady was developed over a decade with Tsou visiting Taiwan yr after yr to get all the things she wanted to make this film the truest reflection of its trendy tradition conflict and never counting on reminiscence or bias to inform her story.
On this means, Tsou is a real artist working at an nearly documentary degree of cultural accuracy and element. Left-Handed Lady feels lived-in and shot intimately as a result of this appears to be the one means she and Baker consider to do it proper; proper to the artist, their topics, and their worlds.
The most effective Netflix motion pictures of the yr, Left-Handed Lady brings the extent of authenticity of a number of previous Sean Baker movies with the distinctive element & care from author/director Shih-Ching Tsou. Excellent younger actor performances from relative newcomers Nina Ye & Shih-Yuan Ma made all of the extra spectacular because the household dynamic shifts all through the movie.
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