Review by Beatrice On 18-Oct-2024
It is with what one does not know about oneself that most things are done.
Taipei
A mother screams; a child is drowning.
Zijie is in high school, passionate about drawing, and practices fencing, aiming to train for the championships.
His father is dead, and his mother has met a man with whom she is starting a relationship.
His older brother, Zihan, accused of attempted murder, is being released from prison due to a reduced sentence.
He has always claimed to be the victim of a fencing accident and that he did not kill intentionally.
The mother, however, believes he is a murderer and tries to keep her younger son away from his brother's manipulative influence.
Zijie, on the other hand, constantly recalls the day of the accident and is convinced that his brother intentionally saved him from drowning.
A new bond begins to develop between the two, one of complicity, trust, shared spaces, and deep privacy.
However, doubts arise in Zijie after a second incident during a fencing training session.
The psychological thriller hinges on sowing suspicions about the mother's beliefs regarding the true or alleged guilt of the older brother, playing on the younger brother's naivety, who, driven by a psychological and emotional need, seeks to have a brother, a point of reference, a mentor, a coach, a companion. All the more so because the ex-convict has also managed to awaken Zijie's homosexuality.
A true crime that occurred in Taiwan in 2014 inspired the debut work of the director, a former fencer from the Singapore national team, who transposed the story into a sporting context.
Fencing is an Olympic sport that involves open combat between two opponents armed with a sword, foil, or saber, and is rooted in the idea of fair play.
The Italian etymology of the word "fencing" carries the essence of the discipline; it comes from the Lombard "skirmjan," meaning to protect or shield (the same root as "to shield"). This is likely connected to the concept of using a sword not as an offensive weapon but as a defensive tool.
However, "pierce," meaning to stab, penetrate, or thrust, shifts the focus from defense to offense.
In the film, everything revolves around this mirror effect and duality, including that of good and evil: the brothers are like Cain and Abel, truth and lies, surface and depth, appearance and substance, intentionality and accident, guilt and innocence, responsibility and unconsciousness, identity and duplicity.
The finale, which seems to follow the path of revenge, opens another horizon, moving from psychological and analytical territory to the psychiatric: the idea of self-induced conviction, the need to formulate an explanation, and the ability or inability to understand or intend, that is, the capacity of a person to comprehend the value of their actions, raising all the doubts that its scientific measurability may provoke.
An intricate and intriguing film: a surprising labyrinth of possibilities to consider, doubts to plant, and uncertainties on which it is best not to rest your presumed certainties.
You don't do what you want. However, you are responsible for what you are.
18-Oct-2024 by Beatrice