A non-fiction film that plays like scripted love-triangle drama in places, Mistress Dispeller is the second feature documentary from director Elizabeth Lo, following her highly praised portrait of Istanbul’s canine population, Stray (2020). Building on Lo’s 2021 short of the same name, this small but absorbing marriage-crisis story is launching this week with back-to-back festival premieres in Venice and Toronto. Shot with a poetic eye, and surprisingly moving at times, it should enjoy a healthy festival run and connoisseur audience appeal.
Mistress Dispeller offers an intimate fly-on-the-wall look at a fairly new growth industry born from China’s recent economic boom. A “dispeller” is a specialist troubleshooter who intervenes to break up extramarital affairs, gaining the trust of the mistress, usually under false pretenses, then gradually working to separate her from her married lover. According to Lo, there are hundreds of these semi-clandestine passion killers currently working in China. Typically hired for two to three months by the wife of an unfaithful husband, for a hefty price, they are equal parts relationship counsellor, psychologist, private detective and hostage negotiator.
The dispeller at the heart of Lo’s film is Wang Zhenxi, who proved instrumental not just in proposing various clients as potential subjects, but also in persuading them to share their sensitive marital problems on camera, no mean feat in a socially conservative, status-driven culture that puts a premium on saving face. The duo who ended up stars of the film are Mrs and Mrs Li, an ordinary middle-aged couple living in a provincial Chinese city. Despite a residual shared interest in playing badminton, their relationship appears to have run out of spark, sex and even conversation. “We used to be so close,” Mrs Li laments. “It feels like there’s an inviable sheet of paper between us.”
Mrs Li has engaged the dispeller after finding intimate text messages on her husband’s phone, unknown to him, correctly surmising that his regular absences and late-night social events with work colleagues are cover for an affair with a younger woman, Fei Fei. Wang deftly manages to insinuate herself into the family home by posing as a friend of Mrs Li’s brother. Soon she is coaxing on-camera confessions from Mr Li, and even gatecrashing his dates with Fei Fei, gently chipping away at their trust in each other while painting herself as everybody’s best friend. Wang’s diplomatic skills are impressive here. She even organises an emotionally charged meeting between wife and mistress, where they couch their rivalry in formally courteous compliments, united by their shared disillusionment with love’s crooked promises.
Much of the close-up observational footage that Lo includes in Mistress Dispeller almost looks too good to be true. But in her Venice press notes, the director stresses the painstaking negotiations that made the film happen, from personal to ethical to legal. While only Wang knew Lo’s intentions in advance, the other key players initially gave consent to be filmed for a more general documentary about love habits in contemporary China. The team then began shooting several possible troubled couples, but some dropped out during the lengthy process. After narrowing their focus down to just the core trio, the film-makers revealed their true motivation late in the shoot, and asked for renewed consent. All agreed to endorse the project. Indeed, both Mrs Li and Fei Fei supply supportive quotes in the Venice festival press kit.
In structural terms, Lo likens Mistress Dispeller to Kurosawa’s classic Rashomon (1950), with its shifting viewpoints between multiple protagonists. The film certainly becomes more lyrical and expansive in its latter scenes, its main trio no longer just looking inwards at their own messy entanglements but musing on more universal themes of long-term romance, family bonds, ephemeral beauty, forgiveness and redemption. Lo’s non-judgemental gaze makes Fei Fei as much vulnerable victim as marriage-wrecking temptress here, a lonely woman with limited options looking for love in all the wrong places. “It’s the movement of love,” she sighs as the affair fizzles out. “He gave his love to me, and later I returned that love to his wife.”
Formally, Mistress Dispeller is pretty conventional, but its talk-heavy interior scenes are couched in handsome stylistic trimmings, from swooping aerial drone shots of glistening city vistas to a heart-tugging soundtrack that includes soaringly dramatic pieces by Puccini, Saint-Saëns and more. Some wider context about the work of other dispellers would have been welcome, as would more case studies with deeper conflict and complexity than this relatively smooth cautionary tale. But as a modestly scaled investigation of love, marriage and infidelity in contemporary China, Lo’s film is engaging, informative and heartfelt.
Director, cinematography: Elizabeth Lo
Screenwriters, editing: Elizabeth Lo, Charlotte Munch Bengtsen
Music: Brian McOmber
Producers: Emma D. Miller, Elizabeth Lo, Maggie Li
Production companies: After Argos Films, Anonymous Content, Impact Partners, Marcona Media
World sales: The Party, Paris (North American Sales: Anonymous Content / Submarine Entertainment)
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Orizzonti)
In Mandarin
94 minutes
