Henry O'Brien
The opening weekend of the 49th Toronto International Film Festival featured a specific throughline that points to a universal experience in a changing society and world. Hong Kong documentarian Rebecca Lo’s Mistress Dispeller, Taiwanese director John Hsu’s midnight comedy Dead Talents Society and particularly Ron Howard’s Eden all dwell on, in one way or another, family in the 2020s at TIFF24.
Mistress Dispeller (dir. Elizabeth Lo, United States)
The follow-up to her 2020 documentary Stray, Lo’s latest work, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival a week before TIFF24, becomes an extremely intimate examination of a love triangle and a cottage industry in China that would seem so unbelievably foreign to anyone in the West. The level of access the viewers receive feels almost so jarring that the question of whether or not this love triangle is real that some of the power of the film’s subtextual points falls short of fully sticking. By no means is the level of access an outright flaw that hampers the viewing experience; the documentary thrives on the moments that the outside would just never see.
Incorporating a Rashomon-story structure, the film follows teacher Wang Zhenxi, a “mistress dispeller” who breaks up affairs to maintain marriages, as she navigates talking to middle-aged couple Mr. and Mrs. Li, and the younger woman Fei Fei. Teacher Wang sets up various meetings and scenarios to interact with all of the participants in this love triangle to gain differing perspectives. She impeccably gets them to open up at various points of the film, starting with Mrs. Li, then Mr. Li and then Fei Fei, revealing a level of disappointment and societal pressure in them.
The conversations are blunt and heavy-hitting, raising one question: why were they OK with being recorded? According to the TIFF24 Q&A after the film, Lo said Wang convinced them by saying that this could help other couples across China. But there is a technical level to it as well. Lo and her crew used a static camera position in areas like a dining room or a badminton court to fully capture these raw moments. In the film’s climax, when Wang arranges for Mrs. Lei and Fei Fei to meet, she asks the crew to leave the room. There are just the three women and the camera, which gives a radical sense of realism.
But Mistress Dispeller thrives on how the characters actually interact with the camera in front of them. As Mrs. Li meets the woman who is her husband’s mistress, she remains mostly composed along with Fei Fei. Mrs. Li even joked that if the camera had not been there, she would probably have acted more confrontationally. This opens the documentary up to show how they will moderate or even bury their reactions, which has the adverse effect of putting more pressure on them, leading to where they are now.
Lo also tries to show how Chinese society has a role to play in this industry and the pressures that come about it. For example, there is a message that encourages couples to have multiple children, leaving open the idea that Mr. Li feels pressure to find someone to make that possible. While this inspection feels shallow, the structure helps the viewer feel inside the corners of these people’s lives, showing what they want to say and what they need to say.
Dead Talents Society (dir. John Hsu, Taiwan)
Serving as the follow-up to Hsu’s 2019 Detention, Dead Talents Society is an impressive genre feat of dark comedy and genuine warmth that is clear to poke holes in capitalistic mindsets and tendencies. The film runs at a pace, but never at a breakneck speed like other TIFF24 Midnight Madness films such as Joseph Khan’s Ick. Instead, Hsu leaves time to portray a ghost story where people don’t die but must fulfill their obligation to the jump scare industrial complex.
The film bombards the viewer with information in a matter of minutes without much time to breath. A rookie ghost (Gingle Wang) seemed unremarkable in both life and the afterlife, where she isn’t particularly scary as a ghost and is judged for having a supposed “lame death”: getting hit by a car. But she has to spring into action when her human family discards her piano competition certificate, which is the value of her existence and keeps her as a ghost. She can avoid the “after-after-life” (seemingly nothingness) if she signs with a haunting agency, but her supposed “boring” life leaves her going to washed-up ghosts Catherine (Sandrine Pinna) and Makoto (Chen Bolin).
Relying on an energy reminiscent of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights, the Taiwanese film spends time as these ghostly rejects soon find kinship in their past experience. Hsu dedicates time to the rookie, Catherine and Makoto, blending together humor and profound tragedy in their backstory. Hsu uses this found family to fight back against the systems in place for these ghosts.
The film grapples with how one can succumb to the literal weight of striving for greatness. Hsu doesn’t pull any punches, showing the comedically bleak nature of this ghost world will suck any value of you even when you’re supposed to be dead. These ghosts don’t return because of an eternal curse or vengeance against the living; they’re just trying to pay their rent.
By the end of this genre exercise, the characters aren’t just fighting to stay amongst the ghost world, but they’re combating the nonsense of the ghoulish socio-economic system, emphasized by the final scare where the family of ghosts just screams in the metaphorical void. The film employs dialectic ideas — goodness vs. greatness, analog scares vs. digital ones — to show that there is a way for these ghosts to find true happiness. While there Hsu had an opportunity to have a sharper critique, it still feels darkly satisfying at TIFF24’s midnight screening to watch clout-chasing ghost hunters look like absolute idiots.
Eden (dir. Ron Howard, United States)
Although the director shot the film in 2023, Howard’s new work at TIFF24 feels like an immediate post-COVID commentary. With families trying to get away from the rise of fascism in a chaotic time, Howard seems to point out the inherent flaws in escapism and trying to build a better world. But in what may feel like his darkest and campiest film, Howard’s Eden has a challenging time in trying to balance tones and have a consistent message stick.
Starring Sydney Sweeney, Daniel Brühl, Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby and Ana de Armas as real-life European settlers trying to survive on an island in the Galapagos in 1929, the movie portrays an attempt to reject society and start anew. Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Law) and his wife Dora (Kirby) find and settle the island so Ritter can write his manifesto. Meanwhile, Heinz and Margaret Wittmer (Brühl and Sweeney) soon come to the island to settle, much to the displeasure of the original inhabitants. Soon, the Baroness (de Armas) and her lovers, who intend to build a beach-side hotel for the ultrawealthy, appear on the island. The film becomes a game of island politics as everyone initially struggles to actually live sustainably.
Howard remains interested in the power structures of this supposed new society, where Dr. Ritter, a man who fancies himself as the next Sigmund Freud, betrays his new philosophy and those around him at every turn. Law taps into his 2020 film The Nest to once again play a blowhard and false idol who has to lie to himself and others to stay sane. Furthermore, Law is outright ridiculous at times and is responsible for some of the campier and funnier moments in the film, almost to show how asinine this whole exercise was.
He and Dora are ill-equipped to live on the island. But the Wittmers, led by Margaret, not only survive but thrive. Through Margaret, Howard posits that if there were a new society to rise from the ash like a phoenix, it would have to be run by a woman. It takes time, and Margaret struggles mightily, including performing an unassisted birth. Eventually, she knows how to live and outwit hostile forces on the island, like Ritter and the Baroness, played brilliantly by de Armas. She is not afraid to steal, threaten and kill to maintain her own lie of being “the embodiment of perfection.” The Baroness’ lies are so ridiculous they eventually become comedic. Margaret, on the other hand, knew how to play the game; it just took time for everyone, including the TIFF24 audience, to notice.
While the feminist ending does feel earnest, Howard and screenwriter Noah Pink underwrite Kirby’s character with very little use in the script. As for the thematics, the film initially feels resolute in criticizing escapism but seems to circumvent this by showing that the Whitmer family became the essential rulers of the island and set up a hotel, just like the story’s villain did.
These flaws may have ruined the film, but the performances from both Law and de Armas keep Eden afloat and will leave audience members laughing, wincing and feeling satisfied at TIFF24.
