At this year’s SXSW, I’ve found that it’s easier to spot the thematic throughlines across projects. It’s a testament to the programmers for creating a line-up where the films feel in conversation with each other. Where else do you get films like “Together” and “Friendship,”–both of which explore the physical and mental toll of codependency–have their premieres treated to raucous acclaim at the Paramount? Take also “Hallow Road” and “It Ends,” which offer a dark, existential take on the road trip film genre. Three films in the Narrative Spotlight sections span a host of genres, from crime thriller to folk horror to coming of age (the latter with a sci-fi twist), and explore how traditional genre tropes and beats are complicated, enriched, and shifted when inhabited by Asian-American protagonists.
The best word I can use to describe Jing Ai Ng’s “Forge” is “sexy,” which might seem like a given considering it takes place in Miami. Yet, while there are on-screen Miami staples, from a dizzying club sequence to neon-bathed sunsets, Ng’s lens is too ambitious just to play the hits. Like its protagonists, “Forge” is all about subverting appearances and how the have-nots can use people’s biases towards them to swindle and get ahead. It’s a top-shelf crime thriller that isn’t afraid to dish thoughtful ruminations about the connection between cognizance and love between its scenes of the wealthy getting their comeuppance. Its allure comes from how it seamlessly shifts between its various plot threads and spaces with a free-flowing liberation, embodying its central characters’ oscillation between identities in order to survive. Desire (for love, wealth, recognition, and everything in between) is a palpable force that oozes off the screen, yet it also has to remain hidden in this world where people say one thing but mean another.
It is particularly rewarding to have seen the talented crew of collaborators that Jing has assembled here utilize the multiplicity of their talents. Andie Ju and Brandon Soo Hoo play siblings (Coco and Raymond, respectively) who create replicas of fine art and sell them as if they’re undiscovered works of master artists. The two are content ripping off unsuspecting buyers, such as in the film’s opening sequence where Coco sells to an eager art dealer (T.R. Knight). This is one of many moments where Jing playfully subverts the stereotypes and expectations of Asian Americans. Coco speaks in slightly broken English with the art dealer and feigns docility, earning his trust and lowering his defenses so that he’s willing to spend more money to buy the art piece. The moment he leaves, grinning even though he has a fake painting in tow, Coco drops the accent; it’s one of the many moments where she becomes a chameleon, and each successful deception is a delight to witness. The crux of the drama kicks off when Holden (Edmund Donovan) hires the siblings to recreate his grandfather’s art collection, which was damaged due to a hurricane, so they can sell it to local artists. Meanwhile, an FBI agent, Emily (Kelly Marie Tran), begins to speak to a string of disgruntled clients who are frustrated at having bought forged paintings, leading her closer to the Zhangs’ operations.
Another way Jing’s script adds nuance to stereotypes is in the relationship between the Zhang siblings and their parents. While their parents run a successful restaurant, they’re frustrated by their children’s apparent lack of ambition. What’s humorous about their disapproval is that Coco and Raymond display the ingenuity, street smarts, and tactfulness of any seemingly “successful” person; it’s just being deployed in a less-than-savory industry. The energetic editing on behalf of Leo Purman Ian Chang and Marco Carrión’s electrifying score exist in delightful dissonance to Zhang’s chosen vocation and their desire to keep their plans in the dark. They particularly shine in scenes where Coco is recreating the paintings (if people were worried that “How To Blow Up A Pipeline” would help instruct people who want to create their explosives, “Forge” just might be the beginner’s Bible for budding art forgers).
A standout moment between Coco and Holden acts not only as a summation of the film’s themes but also as an interesting commentary on the role of fakes and forgeries. To Holden, she describes that to create a forged piece of work properly, she has to have an intimate and deep understanding of an artist’s work. To make something “new,” she has to know every brush stroke they took, the materials they worked with, and what an artist’s secrets are. For Coco, paying attention (and creating from that attention) is an act of love. It’s a testament that Jing’s film, which is so rich in detail regarding culturally specific histories and the particularities of the city of Miami, courses with that same infectious and riveting affection.
Subtlety is in somewhat sparse supply in director Amy Wang’s “Slanted,” but its vociferous take on the angsts and trauma people of color experience while living in majority culture shows a remarkable amount of thoughtfulness when it could have easily just been a one-note tirade. It’s cathartic to see rage so singular and justified on-screen. While people will have fun thinking of the films it riffs off of (cue the “Mean Girls” meets “The Substance” comparisons) it shares the most kinship with a project like this year’s “Grafted,” which also used body horror as a medium to comment on race.
Shirley Chen plays Joan Huang, a Chinese-American high schooler who dreams of becoming prom queen. To say she’s uncomfortable in her skin is an understatement; after a brief flashback featuring a young Joan (Kristen Cui) being hauntingly transfixed by an advertisement featuring white women, we first see Joan trying to modify her face and eyes to resemble a white classmate, Oliva (Amelie Zilber). It’s clear to her that beauty and acceptance are intimately tied with whiteness. There are other clever moments Wang interlopes to indicate Joan’s shame about her culture, such as her insistence on using a fork or spoon to eat while her parents use chopsticks or curtly responding in English while her parents try to speak Chinese.
It is in these scenes where Wang’s film thrives. “Slanted” achieves a clever balance between being subversively reserved and loud when it needs to be. After witnessing scene after scene of Joan being avoided, overlooked, or despised while her white peers at school are accepted, she goes under an experimental ethnic modification surgery that changes her eyes, face, and hair color to be white. These scenes are shot appropriately eerie, with the aspect ratio shifting and everything given a hazy and grainy gloss, so effervescent as to be artificial.
After the transformation, Joan is played by McKenna Grace, and Wang contrasts her rise in popularity at school with the domestic fallout of her decision. “[Your grandma] lived on in your face,” Joan’s father (Fang Du) tearfully says, referencing the fact that Joan had her grandmother’s eyes. It’s a line that could have easily just been a pun or tongue in cheek, but Du’s delivery and the cast’s awareness of the tragedy of such a decision give the scene its due weight and diligence.
As with any experimental skin treatment, it’s always important to read the fine print, and as Joan begins to experience some side effects of her procedure, the film takes a turn for the horrific. It’s an extreme development, but it is in those extremities that Wang nestles her critiques. A unique sorrow and heartbreak comes with realizing that we can make some of our most life-altering choices when we’re young but then have to potentially live with those consequences for the rest of our lives. The feeling of self-hatred Joan wrestles with doesn’t come from a vacuum; over time, it curdles into a palpable sense of disgust. While “Slanted” certainly doesn’t let Joan off the hook for her actions, it calls into question the system around her that has instilled this sense of dissatisfaction with herself. It calls into question the images we consume when we’re young and how those images can shape our sense of identity and personhood. This anchoring heartbreak grounds even as flesh begins to fall, peel, and decompose.
Then there’s “The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick,” which may not explicitly touch on race in the same way as “Forge” and “Slanted” do, but taps into a universal feeling of frustration and sublimated grief. Shot just over two weeks and with a script where its actors would at times rewrite the next day’s dialogue the night before, “The True Beauty of Being Bitten By a Tick” grooves with an improvised and charmingly undefined tempo. You can’t help but be enamored by its horrific, claustrophobic spell.
After experiencing an earth-shattering tragedy, Yvonne (Zoë Chao) goes to visit her friend Camille (Callie Hernandez), leaving her place in the big city to Camille’s residence in the countryside. From the start, we’re given an inroad to Yvonne’s slowly crescendoing frustration; after she arrives at Camille’s place, she’s greeted not only by her friend but also by Isaac (Jeremy O. Harris) and his boyfriend A.J. (James Cusati-Moyer). The last thing Yvonne wants to do after a long car ride is meet new people, let alone have to share a meal, but she’s quickly drawn into the trio’s rhythms. A.J. crafts delicious homemade meals with local produce, and Isaac introduces party games and conversation topics meant to pull Yvonne out of her grief and temptation to retreat behind a phone screen.
The “true beauty” of such sequences is that Ohs frames these intimate moments that are in theory, meant to be welcoming and inviting, with such a disconcerting lens that we feel just how trapped Yvonne must be. From close-ups that focus on every pore of O. Harris’ face to the squeamish sound design of food being consumed that stands in stark contrast with how “delicious” it’s meant to be, there’s a distinct dissonance between the comfort we’re promised verbally and the horrors we’re greeted with visually and sonically. Yvonne’s condition spirals even further when she receives the titular tick bite. Rather than her injury healing, the bite only gets bigger, and with each scratch and pick, the line between her reality and pain begins to close in on itself.
To say more about the plot risks spoiling some of the disquieting developments. But fans of Ohs’s work will no doubt get their fill of how he mixes the grotesque, endearing, and profound all in one. His projects excel in mining the particularities of a particular emotion or awkward feeling, and “The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick” focuses on the disconcerting realization that the friends we rely on can no longer be our comfort or escape. We may think we can flee from pain and move on, but the traumas we experience fundamentally shape our sense of understanding, even if we’d like to think they don’t have any power. Like a tick bite, the reverberations go far beyond the first incision.
