This is an enigmatic film that doesn’t contextualize its characters: we don’t know who they are or where they are. Why this choice? Where are we supposed to be?
The initial script had very detailed character descriptions, even including a dialogue. I like writing a full story structure and then keep trimming it down—sometimes even in a radical way—until at times the narrative becomes somewhat “disjointed.” But it’s precisely through this stripping away that the actions, the body, and their relationship with space begin to emerge more clearly, allowing the audience to engage with the images in their own way or even in their personal way. Maybe viewers will start with a lot of questions, and that’s totally fine—I’m not trying to “answer” them, but rather to bring them to a point where they can let go of those questions and focus on what is actually present in the film.
This erasure of character background is also related to my personal experience as an immigrant. “Where are you from? What’s your Chinese name?”— … I’m just tired of it. So instead, I prefer to rebuild a sense of character through observation: does he eat with chopsticks or a fork? Does he drink more tea or more coffee? These small gestures say much more about a person’s way of being—and they’re more interesting.
The story was originally set during the pandemic (though in the end that doesn’t seem to matter much either). At that time, I was really drawn to the internet, because it allowed me to see things happening in distant places—things that felt both real and unreal, close yet completely out of reach. They triggered many emotions in me.
We observe a man through everyday gestures, filmed one after the other. Can you shed some light on the editing of this prosaic material? You set these gestures in time through the duration of fixed shots, giving an impression of real time. Is this to create tension? How does the perception of time structure Atado?
I was constantly considering whether to use one camera or multiple cameras. If with one camera, I had to repeat for a sense of “continuity.” But the character doesn’t know how to “act for the camera”. He only focused on the action he was currently doing, and would tell me how he usually does it. I thought it appropriate to use multiple cameras to create a free space for him to complete his tasks, like recording many of his performances.
I have an obsession with “time.” But in this project, I didn’t take “time” as the entry point; I started from the actions of the character. The sense of time in the image is naturally generated—it is “created” by the character himself. In a certain sense, he is free in this process: no longer controlled by the camera, but in direct relation with the space—wind, sunlight, or other elements that might interfere with him.
About editing, what attracted me was the “continuity” of his behaviour, especially the relationship between his body and the external world. I knew very clearly that I wanted to try a kind of “imprecise” editing. That is to say, I was not pursuing precision at the editing points (in terms of time), but focusing on the “beginning” and “end” of each action. It might bring about redundancy and repetition, but precisely because of this, the image gains a strong sense of reality. I did not deliberately use “real time” to create tension, but I believe that when something is real and presented without decoration, it naturally brings a kind of tension that belongs to itself.
The film changes at the end, with a switch to colour and with the appearance of a child cradled to a voice over song. Could you explain the reasons for this shift?
From the very beginning, this film was actually meant to tell the story of a woman—maybe a mother figure. Even now, I still feel that the woman who’s either hiding or always napping is at the heart of the entire film. I switched the image to colour, and also made the texture of the sound more realistic, hoping to see if that could make the film feel more real. Maybe now it actually feels more dreamlike instead –but that’s not a bad thing. Reality and fantasy always seem to alternate in my work anyway. Haha :)
The sound work is as spare as it is textured, with a focus on very concrete intra diegetic sounds. How did you work it through? Why did you choose to emphasize certain sounds?
I wanted to on “what I want to hear” and “what I don’t need to hear”. We deliberately removed certain sounds, and intentionally added others—to respond to the image itself. Some sounds were slightly exaggerated. Sometimes we briefly tried to touch on the character’s inner world—but we quickly pulled back. This approach occasionally allowed the film to stretch out in relation to the idea of “time”, but it always brought the viewer back to the present—to what is right in front of us, in the frame. We knew very clearly that everything was leading to that final moment: the appearance of the woman.
For me, sound is an incredibly powerful tool in cinema. I needed that woman character to feel important, so I chose to hide her –to make her appear in a very specific way. That moment, for me, felt like a kind of release.
I often told the sound designers: “Follow your instincts. Be free—even go a little crazy.” We made an agreement: in the final scene, we would gather everything and bring it together—create a kind of anchor point. First, let it all go; then, bring it back. We consciously let go of many conventional ideas about sound—sometimes even to an extreme. Some parts were intentionally “too much,” but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that we could eventually connect all the fragments into a unified sensory experience. That uncertainty, that intensity—it became something we really loved.
The film seems to have been made with great simplicity and economy of means. Could you go back over its genesis?
I woke up one morning, and the first thought in my head was: call the producer, let’s shoot. Young producers are willing to take risks, to try things out. There’s a Chinese saying, “the barefoot are not afraid of the ones wearing shoes”. That was exactly our mindset. Leonor and Cami said yes immediately. None of us had much experience in filmmaking or production—we all came from “savage” paths. The goal was to make the most out of our very limited resources (especially no money), and within about a month, everything was set.
At the time, I was obsessed with one thing: how to make the film even simpler. Simpler meant more efficient—and that simplicity sparked a lot of creative energy. The whole team was excited.
The story was set in summer, under bright, harsh sunlight. But during the shooting, sometimes it rained and sometimes the sun came out—and we were like… whatever. If it rains, it rains. If the sun comes out, it shines. If the kids run into the frame, let them run in. The actress just arrived on set and lay down and started sleeping. She literally “slept” through three days of shooting.
But the one thing I held onto firmly was this very vague, blurry thing in my head. I don’t know what it was exactly, but I could feel it—I had to capture it. And I knew we were very close to it.
The scenes with the kids weren’t planned like what ended up in the film. But kids are impossible to control. That ended up pushing the DP into a completely free state. No one realized we were shooting—including me. I turned around, and everyone on set was crying, hahaha.
I really believe producers play a crucial role in a film project, also the crew. Their personalities, the way they work—it all shapes the final tone of the film. I was really lucky.
I considered translating it as Tied, which is its literal meaning—being bound by something distant or invisible. But it lacked the sound and rhythm of Atado. In the end, I kept it as the title. I just like how it sounds. Whether its meaning still matters—I’m not sure it does anymore.
Interview by Claire Lasolle
