November 26, 2017
Zinnia Flower –
Taiwan, 2015
Tom Lin’s Zinnia
Flower begins with one of those multi-vehicle pile-ups that are so often
featured on local news programs, and it’s not hard to imagine what one covering
it would sound like. Like most of these reports, it would probably be rife with
numbers and banal facts. First, we’d learn the number of dead and injured, as
well as the name of the driver responsible for the carnage. Then there would be
an early – and possibly erroneous - explanation as to how the accident occurred,
and that would likely be it. The broadcast would move on – to another story of
suffering perhaps, maybe even to the latest sports highlights or the most
recent viral video of a cute animal. The next night’s broadcast would likely not
even include a reference to the accident. Yesterday’s news, they might say. It
isn’t of course, for each death touches someone, and each survivor must now
undergo an extremely difficult recovery.
Zinnia Flower is a
look at the aftermath of one of these accidents. In the film’s opening scene,
we are shown the scene of the accident, and while there are multiple cars involved,
the camera focuses on two of them in particular. In one, we see a young woman
named Ming (Karena Lam) stretch her hand out to caress the cheek of the man in
the driver’s seat. He is unconscious, and she seems to sense that this could be
her last moment with him. Blood drips from the top of her head, and as it
falls, it takes the shape of a single tear streaming down her cheek. It is an
image of both beauty and horror, an emotional pain being manifested by a
physical injury, reminding us that the heart bleeds as well. Another man, Yu Wei
(Chin-Hang Shih), is also badly wounded. At the hospital, he is awakened by the
urgent voice of a doctor asking him a question no one should ever have to
answer – Who should the doctors try to save first, his wife or their unborn
child?
The film then follows Ming and Yu Wei as they come to terms
with their horrific circumstances and try to find a path forward. It is a
journey told over 101 days, the first being the day of the accident, and the
rest being the number of days in which people Buddhists mourn the dead. To put
it mildly, their experiences are pretty disheartening. We watch as the things
that once brought them peace of mind now cause them pain and as the people
around them fumble for the right words to say, but quite often don’t find them.
One intended comforter convey her empathy by mentioning that she recently lost
her dog, thereby implying some sort of equivalence. Another tries to relate a
humorous anecdote from work, as if laughter can somehow patch together a
splintered life. Ming’s sister tries her best to provide emotional support, but
mixes it with comments about how much parenthood is taking out of her. It’s
almost as if the death of her sister’s boyfriend gives her a convenient excuse
to get away.
There is little dialogue in the film, and there is truth in
this. These are, after all, two characters who find it hard to express their
emotions or relate to the outside world. Lin uses many of these quiet moments
to focus on the facial expressions of his lead characters and to allow them to
fully express their complicated feelings. We see the slow build to explosive
outbursts, and we witness their struggle to cope with day-to-day life. In Ming’s
case, she is practically shunned by her boyfriend’s family, and I wondered how
they could do that until it dawned on me just how little they probably knew
each other. I also found the film’s frequent references to Buddhist traditions,
especially ones related to death and mourning, fascinating. At one point, Ming
tell Yu Wei that she thinks the 100-day ceremony after a death is meant to
benefit the survivors by giving them enough time to recover, and I couldn’t
help feeling this was a subtle critique of the simplification that goes with
assigning arbitrary timelines to the grieving process.
That said, I couldn’t help feeling that Zinnia Flower stuck too closely to the playbook long established
for films of this sort. We watch as Ming and Yu Wei go through the stages of
grief, yet much of what we see will not be a surprise to people familiar with
movies of this sort. It may be odd to say, but the best moments felt both moving
and rote, for as true to life as many of them were, I felt I’d seen them before.
At one point, I even wondered if the film knew where it wanted to go because it
didn’t seem in any hurry to go anywhere in particular. At least the film doesn’t
opt for a Hollywood ending, wherein Yu Wei and Ming somehow fall in love.
Instead, while the two of them do have a few scenes together, they barely talk
in them, and what they do say is a variation of small talk. Neither of them is
in the right place for anything else.
If Zinnia Flower
does nothing else, it reminds us that healing takes it own time. Its characters
demonstrate that recovering is not a series of simple steps or incantations and
that shattered hearts are not so easily mended. In its closing moments, there
is a note of acceptance, not of some predetermined fate, but of continued
uncertainty and deep emotional pain. Perhaps this is why the closing moments
show us characters with blank stares and forced-back tears. They know, and they
seem to dread what’s coming. I felt for them. They’re the kinds of people you
want to wrap your arms around if just to have the opportunity to say that pain passes.
It’s a cliché, I know, but sometimes clichés are all we’ve got. And that’s part
of the problem. (on DVD in Region 3)
3 stars
*Zinnia Flower is
in Mandarin and Japanese.
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