queer movie marathon: Spider Lilies

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Last night I went to see the short film program Coming out is such great joy at 6 o’clock and the gf joined me for Ci-Qing/Spider Lilies at 8. As you can imagine I was knackered, especially since for about 20 minutes they weren’t able to start the last one of the shorts, so the break I had hoped for between movies was used up. I literally ran to the bathroom and back and slumped into my seat just in time for Spider Lilies. So to spare your, dear reader’s, nerves and my own, I shall at least try to keep the short movies review short, but in a separate post further down. First up is:

Ci-Qing / Spider Lilies

Jade (Rainie Yang, who seems to be pretty famous in Taiwan), a webcam girl, persues her first love from when she was nine years old, Takeko (played by Isabella Leong), after meeting her again years later in Takeko’s tattoo studio. But that ain’t easy, because Takeko doesn’t actually let anyone in. The last time she did that, the night she spent with a girl from her school ditching her little brother to get going, an earthquake killed her father and her brother saw it and lost his memory (dissociative disorder). Hence Takeko feels responsible, she seems guilt-ridden actually. Her left arm is adorned with the same tattoo her father had: spider lilies; because that’s the only thing that her brother does remember. Spider lilies it is said, not only mark the way to hell but also make one lose their memories. So the father’s death, his tattoo, Takeko’s tattoo and her brothers memory loss are all connected by that. Takeko’s not good with memories. When Jade tells her about her first love, when she was nine years old, Takeko knows it is her Jade is talking about, but she refuses to accept Jade’s memories as real. At one point Takeko ask’s Jade why she remembers everything and Jade answeres: “Do you choose to forget?”. And of course they get closer and bad things happen, to a friend, to Takeko’s brother; and Takeko has to learn that she can free herself from the curse of the spider lilies she chooses to believe in. There’s always a choice in what you want your life be dictated by.

Spider Lilies is a Taiwanese/Chinese movie, hence I liked it most for the insights into a culture completely foreign to me. gf and the rest of the cinema didn’t seem to enjoy it too much though as the applause level was low. And I do admit the ending got horribly and unnecessarily dragged out and also some parts of the story, some actions, some characters (e.g. the cop) were completely unnecessary. Jade in her naivety can be a completely annoying character at times, also she really is quite young. it’s not so much the age difference between Jade and Takeko that bugged me but that Jade seemed like 16 and Takeko about 30. But what really captivated me about Spider Lilies were the beautiful pictures. Camera and editing are mighty fine here, which is probably the reason Ci-Qing won best feature film at the queer Teddy-Awards in Berlin this year. And also Isabella Leong is really nice to look at.

I read somewhere that the acting is really horrible if you understand Mandarin, but that the subtitles draw away from that – and although I don’t speak Mandarin, yeah, I WAS able to see some of that overacting happening, but as long as the story is interesting (which it was) and the visual quality is there, I’m fine, especially if the bad acting can be concealed via subtitles. If you get the chance to see this movie, watch it. Yeah, it might be a bit long in the end and it ain’t Shortbus, but it’s definitely interesting and if you have time and money for a trip to the cinema to spare then do it..

Here are a couple of clips to help with your decision:

the trailer – with subtitles!

unfortunately most of this kiss got cut in the final version of the movie.

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Tags: ci-qing/spider lilies