After artfully traversing the streets of Istanbul through the eyes of three stray dogs in her previous documentary feature Stray, Elizabeth Lo continues her off-kilter preoccupations in the medium with Mistress Dispeller. The documentary follows the titular professional, Wang Zhenxi, whose job involves utilising a variety of unique and unorthodox techniques to repair marital strife between couples. Hired by one half of the couple harbouring suspicions about their partner, Wang uses a false identity to ingratiate herself with the couple and the mistress, and then attempts to convince the mistress to end the affair on her own accord, “dispelling” the mistress, so to speak. Lo along with Wang, went through an extensive “casting call” within a pool of clients to find people willing to participate in the project, discreetly began capturing the processes we see onscreen by approaching the participants with a project ostensibly about contemporary relationships, before becoming more transparent and open about their intentions.
It’s an intriguing conceit from the outset. Lo had been struck by the contrast between the ideals of romance she had been exposed to as a youth by pop culture and films, and the pragmatic precepts of love she was introduced to in her Hong Kong upbringing where love is bound more so with sacrifice and duty, and decidedly less romanticised. In Mistress Dispeller she welds these contrasting concepts of love together. Lo uses pristine cinematography and swooning soundtracks to create a vibrant atmosphere, establishing settings and shots with a touch not dissimilar to that of a standard romantic drama or comedy, to ease us into the story. She then juxtaposes it with uncomfortable, unconventionally long takes on our central figures and their conversations about awkward topics of fidelity and failing marriage. The film relishes in our discomfort watching these interactions play out.
The central love triangle is between the couple Mr and Mrs Li and the former’s mistress Fei Fei. Wang ingratiates herself seamlessly with them, and it’s interesting to see the warmth in the connections that are found between her and her “targets.” The documentary is at its most dynamic as it unravels the uncomfortable truths and emotionally charged moments between these three figures. That said, one might question if any of it is deliberately played more overtly for the cameras, so to speak. In contrast to Stray where much of its appeal came from its gentle, unforced sense of observation, here there’s the occasional instance where the interactions either feel too heightened to be organic, or at least the filmmaking and stylistic choices make it seem so.
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Undoubtedly, the film will appeal to many, purely on the basis of the drama that is found in this dynamic, but Lo’s intentions are not to exploit these figures as an oddity. Rather, she critically examines the ideals of romance and marriage, and the labour and effort that must go into maintaining them. It doesn’t quite achieve the heights and depths in its examination of these topics as one might want, but it is a largely effective piece that makes its conflicts and resolutions well worth watching.
