In the second chapter of the Mommy trilogy, Dorothea Sing Zhang unveils the solitary daily life of her mother, a star of Chinese opera. The mostly silent, echoing backstage spaces become a mirror of the emotional distance between them.
Hybrid in form, as its title suggests, this film moves between genres while staging the filmmaker’s displacement as she turns to a subject that should be inherently close: her own mother. Observational throughout, the gaze approaches what it films with a curiosity shaped by a certain distance, as if everything were still to be deciphered – from rehearsal routines and moments of rest to the voice messages sent by mother to daughter, as well as the opaque Beijing in the background. The result is a subtle bond of estrangement between the mother and the space she inhabits. And if the daughter’s silence prevails throughout, the film itself can be read as a response. More than that, it is a love letter. (Pedro Gonçalves Ribeiro)
