Given the technical and sociological advancements of the 21st century, countless heretofore unimaginable professions have emerged, especially those focused on relationships and intimacy. One can now make a more-than-modest living as a professional cuddler, a bridesmaid, or a dating profile ghost writer. (Or, for a less skill-based option, you can sit on cake.) One such specific “odd job” has emerged in China: mistress dispelling. These mistress dispellers are called in to end extramarital affairs, which have erupted in China in response to the growing economy and changing societal norms (and, one assumes, the increasing public visibility of private lives via tech and social media, though that isn’t address in this film). However, the dispeller doesn’t simply confront the cheating spouse a la Jerry Springer. Instead, they befriend the mistress using a fake identity and, through subtle manipulation, convince them to end the relationship.
From beginning to end, in its process and ethic ambiguity, the whole thing seems like the invention of a movie, not something we imagine actually happening in real life. Elizabeth Lo, who previously explored a different flavor of moral inquiry within the animal kingdom in Stray, in Mistress Dispeller follows one such such titular worker across several years. The specific details here involve Mrs. Li, who calls upon the dispeller Wang Zhenxi to investigate why her husband has begun working long hours and is hiding his phone. Unsurprisingly, Wang quickly learns of Mr. Li’s illicit relationship with Fei Fei, a young woman from another Chinese town. Throughout the film, we watch Wang manipulate Mr. Li into allowing her to befriend Fei Fei and eventually guide her to end their relationship.
Unlike cultural and historical norms with regard to narratives about cheating, Lo takes special care to interrogate and give space to all three sides of the circumstance here. This is made possible through the enigmatic Wang, whose cool, easy communication and preternatural ability to put everyone at ease bring a steadiness to the film’s proceedings. All her clients — mistresses included — seem to feel palpably comfortable around her. It’s also evident that Wang’s facility with people is the reason Mistress Dispeller is even able to exist; her clients, specifically Mr. and Mrs. Li and Fei Fei, are clearly so secure in her presence and process that they agreed to participate. (Mr. Li and Fei Fei were initially told they were participating in a “documentary about modern love in China.”)
But beyond the innate appeal of the fundamentally engrossing, curious subject matter of Mistress Dispeller, the film is also an impressively calibrated text. Lo conceives of and structures her film in a distinctively non-standard documentary terms. It’s a work that could easily be mistaken for a narrative film, as absent are any talking heads, frenetic cutaways, or archival footage. Instead, Mistress Dispeller utilizes more mediums and wides than a typical non-fiction film, and is primarily composed of long, still shots — even often recalling the work of Hong Sang-soo in its gentle patience and durational approach to human intercourse — successfully providing a visual juxtaposition to the interpersonal tempest at the film’s core. According to Lo, this approach was intentional, not just in service of an aesthetic design, but also because it allowed her to leave the room, which gave the subjects more privacy and encouraged an intimacy that isn’t always possible in the presence of others, even for the willing. Lo supplements this core stylistic approach with interspersed shots of landscapes and urban visuals of China, less in a shallow bid to beautify her film in the way of so many documentaries, and more to reaffirm the specificity of the culture and society within which these relationship dynamics and this profession have arisen.
Eventually, Fei Fei ends things with Mr. Li, just as Wang intended. Mrs. Li and Fei Fei meet under the mistress dispeller’s supervision to air their feelings, and the film ends with the couple toasting to their “happy family.” What registers at film’s end, then, is not disappointment at the humble way that things play out on a narrative level — absent is the rug pull or big reveal that the streaming era has conditioned us to expect from documentaries — but exhilaration that Lo and Wang were able to foster such vulnerability and honesty within a circumstance that seemingly already had the pin pulled. When asked about her choice to participate in the film, Fei Fei states, “considering the long river of life, this is a small part of it.” We might be just as blind to where that river is headed for everyone involved here as they are, but in a viewing climate dominated by bad-people-behaving-badly nonfiction media, there is no small value in watching real people develop skills of emotional intelligence, empathy, and compassion for each other.
DIRECTOR: Elizabeth Lo; DISTRIBUTOR: Oscilloscope Laboratories; IN THEATERS: October 22; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 34 min.
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