I saw ‘Dear Tenant’ at this year’s Frameline, San Francisco’s Gay and Lesbian Film festival. Cheng Yu-chieh’s film is one of the main films of the festival, and I was happy to support it. And the film starts out well, with a big question in the plot waiting to be answered. In the middle of the whole story is a gay love story, and the film builds its premise around it. The film has great technical aspects – it looks great on screen and is acted well – even if its ‘big reveal’ is a bit underwhelming. But it’s an interesting enough eatch, and establishes Taiwan as a great spource of modern LGBT+ stories.
The plot of ‘Baby Steps’ can be predictable – gay couple struggling to have a baby – but I still found a lot to like in Barney Cheng’s film. The technical aspects of the film are top notch, and I was taken by the acting, especially Gua Aleh who plays the tiger mom meddling in her gay on’s life. She balances comedic and sensitive pretty well, and is given a lot to do here. I myself am not raring to be a parent – I took care of my parents in their latter lives and that’s enough for me but this film is cute enough to catch my attention.
On May 2017, same-sex marriage was legalized in Taiwan, and I honestly did not realize that the country was that progressive. But I was pleasantly surprised by that, and when I saw that Netflix had acquired the LGBT film ‘Dear Ex,’ I wanted to see it right away. I had read some glowing reviews of the film, saying it was touching and heartbreaking. After seeing it, I wish I could say the same. I really wanted to love the movie, but I barely like it. Directed by Hsu Chin-Yeh, it is just so overwrought and loud, and the performances are same – screechy, and they hit you like a blunt instrument – making all the characters unlikable I didn’t want to spend any time with any of them. Worst is Ying-Xuan Hsieh, who plays the wife/mother who gets short shifted her husband’s Life Insurance payment. She starts the movie screaming, and never lets up – I have never seen such a shrill performance that is so noisy and it’s all hollow noise. By the time the character does something nice at the end, I have long checked out on it. All in all, this was supposed to be a feel-good movie, but I just got so tired of it about half-way through that I felt the film unredeemable at that point. Still, I am glad that Netflix is supporting these kinds of films so I won’t really put it down. I am glad this film exists on this platform and hope more will come. And maybe my reaction is isolated – I see a lot of people connecting with this film, and that’s good.
Luha Thoughts 