散买卖不散交情, A Peaceful Divorce

The two conversations are actually taken from a single, rather long phone call that was split into several parts. Before filming, I hadn’t planned on changing the camera position; I simply intended to record the conversation, and I followed my instincts while shooting. In retrospect, I wouldn’t say I chose those camera positions intentionally; rather, they reflect my feelings and emotions at the time. You can sense a certain distance between my father and me at the start of the first conversation. Later, when he touches on a topic that interests us both, I feel closer to him, and so—unconsciously—I shift position, moving the camera to point it at myself.

Fortunately, my mother kept many home movies filmed during my childhood. My parents divorced when I was six, and nothing was filmed after that. Two years ago, I watched these films and remember weeping bitterly, overwhelmed by a tangle of conflicting emotions. For years, I told myself—and others—that my parents’ divorce didn’t affect me, because they both loved me and that was enough. But seeing myself with them as a child felt so strange it was almost frightening. You can clearly see how the way they looked at the camera changed over the years (which was really how they looked at each other, since one of them was always holding the camera); you can see them forcing a laugh in front of me while their relationship was actually falling apart. I always felt that these films belonged to me, in a sense, since they documented my childhood. But later, I realized that nothing in those images was truly part of my own memories; I had forgotten most of those events, even after watching the films again. In reality, they are my parents’ memories—they were the ones who carefully held the camera and recorded those images, which reflect their perspective. I wanted to share this personal footage, but not in a narcissistic way. Since I am the one holding the camera in my own film, I decided to reuse some of my parents’ footage, blending their perspective with mine and traveling back in time.

I returned to China in January after graduating in the United States. Just a few weeks after I got back, the COVID-19 outbreak began, and I found myself stuck at home for months. I realized I was spending twenty-four hours a day with my mother and stepfather, yet not a single moment with my father. This forced separation brought back memories of my childhood. Sharing the same physical space with my mother every day—something new to me, given that I had spent six years living alone in the U.S.—prompted me to reflect on my father’s place in my life. I reasoned that since I couldn’t meet him in person during the outbreak, perhaps I could make a film about his presence without actually filming him or sharing the same space. In fact, the very idea of ​​not showing him in the present is what drove me to make the film.

I’m delighted that people notice that. I think this period of forced isolation significantly heightened my sensitivity to space. In Asian cinema, many filmmakers (such as Edward Yang, whom I particularly admire) like to portray families as individuals who are isolated yet share the same space. But when I started filming my own family, I noticed that even when I tried to film just my mother, my stepfather or brother would frequently appear fleetingly or walk through the frame because they were interested in what I was doing. Or, when I tried to film only my stepfather, my mother’s voice could still be heard in the background. Even though I didn’t deliberately set out to show that I have a loving family, I think people sense it when they see the way we share space.