Wednesday, 12th June 2013

WrittenBy
Film 再生號 (Written By)
Country Hong Kong
Director Wai Ka-Fai
Year 2009
Cast Ching Wan Lau, Kelly Lin, Mia Yam
Details Colour 85 minutes

A film set in contemporary Hong Kong, around a family trying to cope with tragedy and loss. The father died in a car accident 10 years ago, and the daughter was blinded. The daughter tries to heal the wounds by writing a novel about an alternate reality in which the father survived and was blinded but the rest of the family died.

The film blends stories inside stories with Hong Kong folklore about ghosts and reincarnation. So much of the film is stories being written about stories being written that the viewer becomes as entwined as the daughter is in her tale telling. Life as a tragedy told by a concealed author. Marooned by repeated disaster the daughter hovers about going where she believes her loved ones have gone.

Special effects are used wisely and economically to support the film. There is a nicely done sequence where the family and furniture get rehoused in a cemetery near the funicular railway. The scenes set in a Chinese afterworld are poetic in their vision.

A really strong performance from the young actress playing the daughter. No glib answers here about fate and predestination, but proof that film (like the book the daughter writes inside the film) can help us work through our inner emotions and feelings.