This beguiling directorial outing from acclaimed cinematographer Chienn Hsiang earned a Taiwan Golden Horse award for lead actor Chen Shiang-Chyi. She is superb as Ling, a fortysomething woman with early-onset menopause trapped in a stifling existence: a sweatshop job with few prospects; an absent husband and rebellious daughter, neither of whom answer their phones; a hospital-bound mother-in-law who offers an awful vision of what is to come. In Ling’s lonely apartment the wallpaper peels and the locks jam, both symbolic of her state of mind.
Yet there are signs of another life – a man in the bed across from her mother-in-law whose brow she mops tenderly, even erotically; the dreams of dance classes into which she drifts, music seeping gradually into her otherwise silent life. Chienn wisely keeps his distance, framing Ling in hand-held longshots through windows, across crowds, behind someone’s shoulder, emphasising her isolation. It sounds bleak but it’s surprisingly tender with moments of bittersweet comedy (Ling develops leg-cramp listening to the couple next door make love) and a stirringly ambiguous finale.
