Slamdance 2021 | "Taipei Suicide Story" and the Shared Edge
10/12 ForReel Score | 4/5 Stars
I find it funny how my brain automatically adjusts the title of Taiwanese director KEFF’s 2020 film, Taipei Suicide Story, to “Taipei Love Story.” In my mind, the latter title just feels more natural. It feels like a title that should exist. And why wouldn’t it? We’re so constantly taken with our grand tales of love and lovers and feeling love. Taipei Suicide Story is neither grand nor a story of love. It is a “small” feeling film, clocking in at just 45 minutes, concerning only two characters, and taking place almost entirely in one setting. It is also not about love; rather, it is about something much graver.
In KEFF’s film, though, suicide is facilitated in the same way as a night’s sleep during vacation. In an alternate present (or future?) Taipei, individuals who have grown weary of the world can check in to a specialized hotel where their lifeless bodies will be dealt with as routinely as a bed needing new sheets. Or, they can find a will to keep living and checkout the next morning. One young woman (Vivian Sung) disrupts the hotel’s normal operations with her indecision, and this prompts front desk clerk Zhi-hao (Tender Huang) to investigate. The two develop a rapport, and what unfolds is far more Lost in Translation than it is bleakly dystopic.
This is due in large part to nothing being sensationalized – no scenes are elaborated on beyond what they need to convey, and contemplative editing keeps each shot stoic and deliberate. The setting is liminal and non-descript, never a character in the film itself but as featureless and as vapid as we would expect any purgatorial waiting room to be. Aside from a few brief sections of wistful guitar chords, there is also no score or soundtrack. The film’s “air” is instead filled with the droning hums of fluorescent lights, air ducts, and distant traffic – the white noise of city dwellers in deep thought. This “fuzz” fills the space between each line of dialogue, which is in turn used sparingly so as to be as purposeful as possible, almost poetic. When the guitar comes in, it almost works against the pensive atmosphere that KEFF works so hard to establish.
It can be a very delicate thing to bring an audience into a world as minimalist as the world of Taipei Suicide Story, but for the most part the film is hugely successful. Main actors Huang and Sung aren’t required to bring a huge range of emotion to the table, but they are effective at embodying their performances, conveying with tired eyes and rigid body language the weariness of two forlorn souls perched on the edges of their respective worlds. Their story isn’t one of exuberance and love, remember, but of the simple understanding that is born between two people who see - really see - each other for a moment in time. KEFF recognizes the weight and resonance in this basest of human bonds, and utilizes it to full effect in a film that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome.
