Director: Wu Tong
Writer: Wu Tong
Cast: Jia Xiuhua, Luo Chenghui
Running time: 24mins
Newspaper billows softly, an oscillating fan blows gently, a pen scratches at paper. The collective sounds in the opening moments of Who is Xiang? symphonise to create a silence that captures how even somewhere as familiar as home can feel desolate when you lose the person you once shared it with. After all, it isn’t the ghosts of the dead that haunt us, it’s the stillness they leave behind.
Tong Wu’s Who is Xiang? may feature technical stumbles and an underwhelming conclusion, but this small, textured tale still proves affecting thanks to its engaging premise. How do we move on, when the person we lost isn’t the person we thought we knew?
In the wake of the loss of her husband, Juxian’s life is occupied by the silence of idle tasks, and the company of her loyal, if frustrated, granddaughter, Zijun. Juxian’s quiet grief is interrupted by the discovery of a letter written by her late husband, addressed to a woman known only as Xiang. Sensing an opportunity to uncover the identity of the mysterious woman, Juxian joins Zijun on a work trip with ulterior motives and one question on her mind: who is Xiang?
Who is Xiang? is never better than when it depicts the aching quiet of grief. Tong uses a combination of long takes and naturalistic diegetic sound to make us feel the longing of Juxian’s world; a world that despite its pain still hasn’t lost its beauty. Shot composition in particular is a highlight, always creating spaces that feel textured and lived in. Wu Tong shoots her locations with the same hazy reverie often found in the work of Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino – using her frame to create deep connections and even nostalgia for places we the audience have never been.
The authentic lead performances at the heart of Who is Xiang? meanwhile serve to power its understated drama effectively. Most notably, Jia Xiuhua gives an intentionally muted and repressed turn as Juxian, capturing the friction between the pit of grief plaguing her character, and the stoicism typified by men and women of her generation. The corners of her mouth are practically calcified, stuck facing downward, and the effort required to smile is herculean; a Sisyphean task of swallowing down the anguish to invite in the everyday joy found so often in the normal. Luo Chenghui is similarly effective as Zijun, adeptly possessing the familiar contradiction between both the love and the exasperation inspired by our family ties.
Despite this, small technical issues still pull us away from the story which, while minor, are disappointing in terms of how easily they might have been avoided. The editing in particular feels jarring, especially in the early stretch, with a number of shots which seem uneasily stitched together. The 180-degree-rule is also broken early on, which feels out of character for a film which is as proficient in other areas of cinematography. And most notably, there are subtitling errors which (while they won’t matter when screening to Mandarin-speaking audiences) can distract from the thoughtful performances on screen.
The conflict also falters when it steers toward the more traditionally dramatic. An argument in the second act fails to capture the boiling pot of tension growing between our central characters and feels too loosely scripted for us to learn anything new about them or feel their plight more deeply. Similarly, Who is Xiang? culminates with an incident that feels unearned in this story, and attempts to give a narrative excuse as to why sometimes life doesn’t give us all the answers we’re looking for. It’s a frustrating note on which to end, and contradicts the true heart of the film, which suggests that finding closure is less important than having someone to search for it with you.
Wu Tong’s Who is Xiang? is photographed beautifully and well performed. It may struggle to find the right ending to this story and can stumble technically, but ultimately, it tells a thoughtful, affecting tale about living after loss.
