Eight years after his art-house debut feature The Most Distant Course (最遙遠的距離), director Lin Jing-jie (林靖傑) goes mainstream with Elena (愛琳娜). Part romantic comedy, part Taiwanese soap opera, the film, set in the industrial city of Kaohsiung, tells the story of a woman in search of love and happiness, but fixes its gaze on social ills and political injustice in Taiwanese society. This, combined with the film’s layers of humor and lyricism, suggests a much more forgiving and approachable Lin.
Lin’s unique perspective is immediately revealed at the beginning of the film. Shot from an unusual angle, the opening scene shows the dust-covered heel of a woman riding a motorbike. We follow it to a yard where a flock of turkeys roam and gobble, and the woman is heard complaining to her father about the droppings of his pet birds. In a effectively unglorified way, the titular heroine Elena (Chen Yi-jung, 陳怡蓉) is introduced as plain and down-to-earth. Coming from a working-class family, where her father and brothers are either factory workers, low-ranking police officers or chronically unemployed, the single and 35-year-old Elena lives a meager life working odd jobs, while dreaming that one day she will get married and become a happy middle-class housewife.
Elena’s big break seems to come when a car accident lands her free violin lessons and later a job as a violin teacher. Her aspiration to lead a respectable lifestyle soon crumbles, however, as Elena learns that her new “dignified” career doesn’t actually pay much. The violinist soon finds herself busy playing at wedding banquets and funerals for extra cash.
Photo Courtesy of SoulGood Films
On a hectic day commuting between jobs, Elena meets cab driver Liao Chun-ming (Cash Chuang, 莊凱勛), a divorcee whose wife left him for being a deadbeat. Affection grows between the two but soon comes to a pause as Elena meets Kevin (Mo Tzu-yi, 莫子儀) through a dating agency. Rich and handsome, Kevin is an atypical prince charming — escorted, as he is, by three gangsters 24 hours a day.
At this point, Elena evokes all the familiar tropes of romantic comedy, albeit slightly offbeat. Lin, however, never loses his focus on depicting working-class life. Even when he romanticizes and injects humor into the characters’ hardships, it is heartfelt and tenderly portrayed.
In one of the film’s most lyrical sequences, Elena and Chun-ming are on their first date. The two drink cheap wine out of water cups inside Chun-ming’s cab, parked by the river. Elena gets off the vehicle and starts playing her violin. Across the river, factory after factory looms in haze.
Meanwhile, a subplot follows the orbit of a family melodrama that is quintessentially Taiwanese. Whether talking over cups of tea and Kaoliang liquor (高粱酒) at home, or instant coffee outside a 7-Eleven, Elena and her father and brothers are seen arguing, cursing each other and brawling, yet always trying to support one another in their own way. The pairing of veteran actor Long Shao-hua (龍劭華), who plays the father, with Chen as well as Leon Dai (戴立忍) , Ko Shu-yuan (柯叔元) and Huang Teng-hui (黃鐙輝), as the three brothers, is a stroke of genius. Seemingly without effort, each actor invests a distinct personality into his or her role, and when put together, their performances are simply electrifying.
But, Lin doesn’t stop here. When Elena finds her dream of a middle-class existence shattered — Kevin dumps her after learning about her pregnancy — and her family’s house is about to be bulldozed due to an urban renewal plan, the film instantly shifts to something like The Legend of Zorro, featuring Elena as a violin-playing masked heroine who sides with laid-off workers, foreign laborers, new immigrants and sex workers at protests and street demonstrations.
It might be too bold move on Lin’s part. The shift is too abrupt, and the climactic scene in which all the socially injured and deprived come to protect Elena’s family house from being torn apart is poorly rendered. But telling a dramatic story doesn’t seem to be Lin’s priority. Instead of depicting a final victory of the underdogs, Lin shows Elena playing her violin in empty houses or to weary commuters in MRT trains and in front of newborn babies. It is boisterous, messy and tinged with a sense of raw poetry, just like working-class life in Taiwan can be.
Another point worth mentioning is Taiwanese operatic performer Kao Yu-shan (高玉珊), who plays the father’s girlfriend. While seeing little screen time, Kao comes off as a strong Taiwanese woman. She is loud and uncouth, and if a bulldozer dares to come to her home, she will fight it till her broom breaks.
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