When it comes to documentaries, at times half the battle for audiences can be won with an unusual idea. As in the case of Elizabeth Lo’s Mistress Dispeller which deals with the curious case of a professional “mistress dispeller”, Teacher Wang (Wang Zhenxi), hired by a woman to save her marriage by breaking up her husband’s extramarital affair.
In fact, a Mistress Dispeller is quite the opposite of Wakaresaseya in Japan—agents who are contracted to sabotage marriages or relationships by seducing partners. Teacher Wang, on the contrary, is part of the growing and evolving anti-infidelity industry in China, if one can call it that. The film had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival and then went on to play at the Toronto International Film Festival. Lo documents the entire process in all its nitty-gritty. After a consultation with Teacher Wang, the betrayed wife has a significant task ahead—to organically bring her into the family fold. She does so by having Teacher Wang pose as a friend wanting to learn badminton. What follows is how she embeds herself in the set-up and gradually gains the trust and confidence of all three. She may be out to bring an illicit relationship down but is not quite a destroyer. Instead, she comes across as a psychotherapist we’d all do well to have, to confide in and to sort out our minds and impulses.
What I kept wondering all through the hour-and-a-half-long documentary was how Lo would have managed to shoot it. How did she get unprecedented access to the husband, wife and the so-called other woman? How much courage would it have taken for them to reveal their vulnerabilities and present their private lives for public consumption? How did Lo manage to bring the camera into the presumably confidential conversations with them? More so when it’s very evident that she is not taking recourse to any surreptitious filming or the “fly on the wall” technique of shooting. So then, is the action not unfolding in real time? Were the scenes set up later? Were the individuals voluntarily re-playing moments and situations, interactions and exchanges that may have happened earlier when Teacher Wang was covertly doing her job on them? Lo’s is a new form that is likely to elicit both scepticism and approval for the modus operandi. Whatever the case, she does deliver an effective and engaging piece of documentation of mucked-up relationship dynamics. It’s like one is looking through a peeping hole into the private world of the three dramatis personae. However, instead of serving the inherent voyeurism in each of us, the film evokes the feeling of empathy in the audience for lives trapped in seemingly irresoluble human predicaments and conflicts.
While having been hired by the wife, Teacher Wang and, in turn, Lo herself don’t demonise the husband or the mistress. They are not the quintessential villains in the story. The film gives space to their emotions as well. “Should I split myself in two?” asks the husband. Why does a mistress stay content with the incomplete love of a man who’d never be her own? It dwells on loneliness and the quest for companionship and the intricacies and complications of love. How you can fall in love in the blink of an eye and fall out of it just as easily. Mistress Dispeller is a bittersweet take on bittersweet feelings that is also a fascinating showcase of the familial, cultural and societal rules and rituals in China. Most so it stands out for never losing out on the essential dignity and delicacy of the narrative despite dealing with fraught, and potentially ugly, feelings.