Drifting Flowers is out lesbian Taiwanese director Zero Chou’s third film that centres on LGBT relationships. Best known for Spider Lilies, Chou made Drifting Flowers in 2008 as part of her ambition to complete six LGBT-themed films, each one cinematographically colour-coded to represent each of the six colours on the Pride flag – an idea borrowed perhaps from Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Red/White/Blue trilogy of films. All three of Chou’s films (their first was Splendid Float, which focused on drag queens) were made with her partner, Liu Ho Ho.
The film opens with a shot over a moving track. We’re on a train, hurtling in dream-like slow motion in and out of darkened tunnels. Quietly and hauntingly, a voice begins to float, like a siren’s call. An old woman rises from her seat in the train car, moves as if drawn to the voice.
As the tracks speed by, we’ll soon learn that this is no ordinary ride, but a metaphorical zip-line unravelling a journey forwards and backwards through time and memory.
We cut to a close-up of its singer, a young porcelain-skinned chanteuse whose eyes stay fixed downward, never to meet our gaze. This is Jing, one of the leads of the first story ‘Mei Gou’. We soon learn that Jing is blind, and sings in a bar for a living.
In a deftly executed opening scene we are introduced to the people in Jing’s life – her 8-year-old sister Mei (after whom this first tale is titled) and Diego, her butch accordion accompanist. Also immediately revealed are their feelings for each other. Mei’s eyes fix on Diego and her androgynous looks. Diego, who is quietly attracted to Jing, offers to accompany her and Mei on their late night walks home.
All is good until a visit from an insistent social worker forces Jing to leave Mei with a foster family. Mei, who by now has a searing crush on Diego, believes that Jing is acting to keep Diego for herself, and wreaks mischief to break them up. Angry at Jing, she forgoes caring for her sister to spend more time with her foster mother who gladly dotes on her.
Being the protagonist, much of this first story is focused on Mei and her immature view of love and relationships. It is safe to assume that Chou wants us to recall what it was once like to be young, infatuated and frustrated at the obstacles standing in the way of the object of our affections. Emphasis is also placed on the sisterly bond between Mei and Jing, and scenes where they share a song and walk are especially touching.
We return to Mei towards the end of this story, gazing out of a train window (presumably the same dream train). The landscape speeds by, punctuated with two brief clips of her as a teen declaring her love for a butch classmate and their break up.
The film segues into the second story (entitled ‘Lily’) where we see Jing and Diego singing at the wedding of Lily and Yen. It is soon revealed that Lily is a lesbian with a butch partner called Ocean; that Yen is Lily’s best gay friend and that the marriage is a sham perpetuated for the benefit of their parents.
The film then fast forwards and we see Lily and Yen as their older selves. Lily, now with Alzheimer’s, has a penchant for keeping silent and apart from the other patients. Yen has a lot on his hands – he is now HIV positive, and has a partner who seems keen to move on to another man. Yen returns to Lily, who mistakes him for Ocean and refuses to believe him when he tells her that Ocean will never be back.
It is in this second part that Chou displays an interesting choice in casting. Appearing and sounding neither conventionally masculine nor feminine, Sam Wang, as the elder Yen, fittingly confuses us for a moment. During their first scene together, we are placed in Lily’s shoes and made to ask: ‘Is this the man I married, or my lover?’ (I even wondered a while if Ocean has transitioned).
In this story, as well as throughout the film, Chou has characters repeatedly asking each other "Are you male or female?" With each exchange, we are made to ponder how and why such a question matters in the first place.
In one critical scene, Lily, still believing that Yen is Ocean, performs a makeover on him, so that her father (who has since passed away) would find ‘Ocean’ more feminine and not find out about their relationship. Yen, who by now is resigned to Lily’s hallucinations, resolves to spend his few days with her agreeably. He gives in to her demands to wear a dress for their day out and withstands unwanted stares and attention from bullies.
Just as the first tale gave us an insight on the relationship between sisters, here we see the love that is shared between close friends, and how the vows of a marriage, albeit a fake one, can be expressed for real. What is also interesting is the close look at love between older characters. Though developed by proxy and only in Lily’s mind, we witness intimate exchanges between Lily and Ocean as older women, something so rarely seen in lesbian cinema.
In the third part, ‘Diego’, we return to the butch from the first story. This is a jump back in time and Diego is a teenager, who works part-time as a puppeteer in her family troupe. We also see a young Lily who performs in a temple sideshow. The two meet, make out on a rainy night and are soon making plans for the future. Interspersed, are scenes of Diego binding her chest and conversing with a young Yen about how uncomfortable she feels about her body.
Chao Yi-lan, as Diego, wins hands down in the acting department. Effortlessly charming and at times attractively shy, she pulls off the persona of the awkward tomboy turned assured woman. It is not difficult to see how those around her – Jing, Mei, Lily, and even Yen, would be drawn to her.
Visually, Drifting Flowers appears to borrow from the Wong Kar Wai and/or Tsai Ming Liang book of filmmaking. There are the familiar dolly shots, the doorway framing and the long, silent and austere scenes. As mentioned, Chou has chosen to colour code her films. For this film she has doused several set-ups in red, which would inevitably draw out even more comparisons to Wong Kar Wai. There is even a scene where Chao’s Diego, with the slicked hair and cigarette dangling laconically from the corner of the mouth, seems to be channelling Tony Leung in one of Wong’s films.
Story-wise, Chou has made a step forward from Spider Lilies, though I often found myself wishing directors would stay away from conceits such as the HIV-positive gay man and the homophobic bullies. If written well, these can serve to evoke empathy, but Chou fails to do this here and her narrative devices unfortunately tend to descend into contrivances and clichés. She has also yet to prove herself adept at casting and directing her actors. Apart from Chao and Lu Yi-ching, who plays the older Lily, the other performances are less consistent and at times overly dramatic. One wonders if the believability of the above mentioned actresses laid in their own restraint and talent.
Films that focus on lesbians and their relationships occupy a small subset of queer-themed films produced each year. Rarer still are films that feature butch women in lead roles. One may even be more hard-pressed to think of any that have ended happily or with a meaningful resolution. Drifting Flowers is far from perfect. Very few LGBT films are. Despite its flaws, this film deserves more than one viewing. It is earnest and made with heart. Zero Chou may need more time to polish and further hone her filmmaking skills, but deserves some support at the very least for being on the right track.
Drifting Flowers is screened as part of IndigNation Pride Film Festival @ Sinema Old School, 11B Mt Sophia on 11 & 12 Aug 2010 at 7pm. Tickets are available online at $10 at http://tix.sinema.sg/index.php.