In China, when there is suspicion of an affair, people hire a private investigator to terminate the relationship. It is a growing profession called Mistress Dispeller. When facing the infidelity of her husband, Mrs. Li decides to tell her brother, who connects her with Wang Zhenxi, a professional mistress dispeller. Then, she gathers all the valuable information to create a careful plan to break up the affair of Mr. Li and Fei Fei.
Elizabeth Lo allows us to watch an extensive operation to bring back a decadent marriage. In Mistress Dispeller, her camera closely observes the misleading words, lies, and frustrations that the couple is going through. Wang enters their mundane life as a friend of Li who has an interest in playing badminton. The couple is viewed as a role model for the other people in the neighborhood, as everyone observes their external appearances – as a close couple that does everything together. She earns his attention calmly. Wang is not interested in solving the case right away – she is cautious and uses all the available information to create situations where she can discover more details.
Wang is a fascinating character to observe. She is physiologically astute and portrays herself as a compassionate friend willing to give the best advice for the marital crisis. Promptly, Mistress Dispeller shows us how charming and charismatic she is. Mr. Li is open to confessing his wrongdoings in their first dinner alone. Wang sets up a whole scenario to fragilize him during the dinner through a breakdown argument with Mrs. Li. He allows himself to be vulnerable with her, even with little to no intimacy. It is an instigating sequence of images to follow due to her ability to connect easily with people – on a scale that makes you forget she is a commissioned professional.
An underlined topic in Lo’s thesis is the tragedy of those relationships. The cameras are empathetic towards Fei Fei. She does not get the treatment of a morally corrupt woman who decides to destroy a family. Otherwise, she has a nuanced analysis of why she has decided to begin that affair. In this sense, the film breaks towards a three-part narrative that surrounds each one of the women. The first expands on Mrs. Li’s desire to continue the increasing Chinese will to sustain an ideal family trope. It converses with economic prosperity, and authorities aim for it. Secondly, the focus shifts to the affair, Fei Fei. She is a frozen food delivery entrepreneur who lives in Zhengzhou and falls in love with a married man from Luoyang. Lastly, it dives deep into Wang’s solution to the family problem.
The structure allows Wang to be a character that flows between the parts, but she has the importance of guiding the public throughout the chaos. She is so convincing that she places herself in Mr. Li and Fei Fei’s arguments as an active part of it. She has heard a voice in that couple dynamic, and she becomes a rotten root that ignites their downfall. Furthermore, as Elizabeth Lo narrates more about Fei Fei, it is more evident how tragic her history is in the whole context. The realistic approach by the director amplifies a persona consumed by melancholia and solitude. Lo even punctuates her despair using operas in the soundtrack. The more the film develops, the more tragic it gets. The vibratos emphasize that.
In its last half, Mistress Dispeller loses its rhythm. It gets bureaucratic, and the film extends some of its sequences. However, it is not enough to diminish the great work of Elizabeth Lo. She works hard to establish a coherent narrative arc for all those persons. She respects the space in more serious conversations and does not judge them. Even though it is inherent for the filmmaker to be ideologically leaning toward a side, she does so, but she is not highly critical of Fei’s attitudes. It is something that the public must watch, absorb, and reflect on. Therefore, she assigns the task of judgment to those who are watching. Even though Mrs. Li endeavors to understand and even lecture her about her actions, Lo does not insert her as a player in the lying game.
Finally, Mistress Dispeller ends with its tragic tone by playing a French heavy-dummy song, Odezenne’s Hardcore. Instead of denoting those feelings with a last opera, the choice of that song represents the physiological and physical pains through the artist’s lyrics. Even going back to the status quo, Elizabeth Lo’s film shows how everyone gets hurt when people hear their inner desires.
Mistress Dispeller will screen at the upcoming Chicago International Film Festival.
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