One of the questions I always get in my writing classes is “I have no idea what to write about”. My advice will always be “start with something you know and go from there”. Singaporean writer-director Nelicia Low did just that.
Low was a former national fencer. Being a sport she obviously knows a lot about, she uses the intricacies of fencing to effectively mirror the fractured relationship between two brothers. Also, in an interview, Low mentioned that she drew inspiration from her relationship with her autistic older brother to tell a story about the difficulty in unreciprocated emotions in sibling relationships.
The story: High school fencer Zijie (Liu Hsiu-fu) is estranged from his older brother Zihan (Tsao Yu-ning) because their mother (Ding Ning) believes Zihan is guilty of a violent incident at a fencing competition. Zihan is released from juvenile detention after seven years. Unbeknownst to their mother, Zijie reconnects with Zihan, causing events that will force him to question everything he believes about family and truth.
Nelicia Low’s debut feature Pierce is a Singapore-Taiwan-Poland production. It is a deeply personal effort and treads a distinct path from many similar movies about complex sibling relationships.
One of the many grace notes in Pierce is how Low plays with character motivations, painting them in fine deliberate strokes and gently teasing the audience to figure out the two brothers’ motives, especially Zihan’s. Did he intentionally hurt someone or was it an accident? While with Zijie, we are kept at bay by his desperate search for the truth and his constant need to believe in Zihan’s goodness. I find this a deft balancing act buoyed by two outstanding performances and fine cinematography that kept me spellbound. Most stories rushed out of the blocks to define the characters’ motivations, not here. It takes its time to get there but knows how to play the game to keep audience in rapture, waiting for the ball to drop.
Liu puts in a sit-up-and-look-at-me performance, capturing the physical demands of the sport and the emotional complexity of a young man caught in the throes of family commitments, self-awareness and deception. Tsao brings a brimming menace bubbling just below the surface, crafting a character that feels ambiguous and yet in a split second becoming as evil as a night without stars. Both characters feel totally realised and immediately sympathetic.
Pierce has a visual style that is arresting and hypnotic. Helmed by Polish cinematographer Michal Dymek (Eo and The Girl with the Needle), I love the lighting and framing of each shot, which is such exquisite and meticulous work. The subtle play with spaces to suggest the gulf between various characters and how evil and deception reside there is particularly unsettling. Even the boys’ mother Ding Ning’s singing of oldies from the 50s and 60s in a nightclub feels particularly haunting, bringing a sinister layer to the storytelling.
When the movie hits the shocking final act, Low makes some brave choices which makes Pierce a better movie for it but also making it polarising. I could get behind the shocking ending but Choo couldn’t and I could not fault her. Though challenging, it stems from a belief that sometimes we all rather live a life of lies rather than confronting the cold hard truths.
PS – I saw this in a theatre with only 3 people and that included me and Choo! Quite unbelievable, I know. This movie is so much better than all the other crap screening presently and it really needs a viral word-of-mouth and I am hoping my words would implore some of you to check it out.
4 / 5
