Fight for Fidelity: An Interview with Elizabeth Lo

Photo: Elizabeth Lo

A person who promised forever elects to turn unfaithful, knowing full well the shame and hurt they will inflict on their spouse. It's not an uncommon situation, but variance springs from how the victim chooses to respond. We've watched trashy television, where things quickly escalate to violence. We know of friends who sought immediate separation. We're even wary of those who just accept the transgression to preserve the life they built. But an avenue few would be familiar with is the Chinese business of mistress dispelling. 

A mistress dispeller is a specialist hired to abolish extramarital affairs. They infiltrate the lives of the adulterer, their lover, as well as the client. The greater their entanglement grows, their methods of manipulation make the need for dissolution appear as the single reasonable decision. It's a fascinating profession, which documentarian Elizabeth Lo examines in her latest outing, aptly titled Mistress Dispeller. Following Stray, her critically acclaimed exploration of the dogs that live on the streets of Istanbul, Lo was granted intimate access to Teacher Wang and one of her cases: wife Mrs Li, husband Mr Li, and mistress Fei Fei. 

The lack of inhibition from her subjects is remarkable, and Lo's subtle placement of the camera makes you feel like not only an often uncomfortable voyeur but part of the family. Lo and I spoke in Hong Kong before she made her way down under to present the film at this year's Sydney Film Festival. We discussed the other relationships she followed, what she learned about love, and where the film will never be seen. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

This story contains spoilers for the film Mistress Dispeller. 

CONNOR DALTON: How did you become aware of this vocation?

ELIZABETH LO: Well, I knew I wanted to set this film in China as a way to get to know the country. I grew up in Hong Kong, and filmmaking is always a great way to embed in a culture. I had also seen Zhang Yimou's Raise the Red Lantern a long time ago and wanted to look at modern-day China and see what it's like for someone like a mistress who is peripheral to a main relationship and see how they navigate society in that position as a woman. So, as I was researching mistresses in China, I came across the mistress dispelling phenomenon, and I was so struck by it. At first, I thought it could only be a fiction film, but once I met my Chinese producer, Maggie Li, who was able to scour Chinese media and social media to locate mistress dispellers, we met with dozens of them. And Teacher Wang was the only one who could get us access to all three of her clients from the same love triangle.

DALTON: For contrary reasons, I'm flabbergasted said love triangle all agreed to participate. How were you able to garner their trust?

LO: It took us three years to find them. We followed Teacher Wang for three years, and we filmed with multiple other couples. They were the only love triangle that allowed us to capture their experience with mistress dispelling from beginning to end. It was pretty unique; the little brother that's in the film was actually a male mistress that had been dispelled by Teacher Wang. So two years later, when his older sister comes to him and says that she's struggling with infidelity in her marriage, he tells her, 'I have the perfect solution for you.' 

With Teacher Wang participating in this film, the crew being lovely people, and Teacher Wang being such a magician at her job she could make your problem go away, there was this vouching of approval for us. That's how we got the wife onboard. For the husband and the mistress, obviously, they couldn't know what the film was about at the beginning, so they were approached by Teacher Wang's business partner to participate in a film more broadly about modern love and dating in China. 

That's what they had agreed to, but we always knew that ethically, by the end of the process, once they understood the real role that Teacher Wang played in their lives, my producer, Emma Miller, and I would have to give them the opportunity to re-consent or drop out if they wanted to. We would have totally respected if they had done that. We had a whole backup plan in which we were going to pivot the film to only centre around Teacher Wang and dip in and out of cases in a more shallow way or take a much more survey approach of different love industries in China that we had filmed over those three years, whether it was divorce lawyers, matchmakers, or mistress dispellers.  

DALTON: Given his reputation was arguably most at stake, did you understand why the husband continued his involvement even after he conceded the affair?

LO: All of these people only agreed to a few days of filming with us at the very beginning. Luckily because of interpersonal chemistry — maybe that on-set chemistry that all documentarians have with their participants — they agreed to allow us to film them over four months, and that trust was built step by step, day by day. 'Can we come back the next day? Can we come back the next day?' That's how production happened. We were never guaranteed that after the next day, there would be another. 

For the husband, I think he wanted to please his wife, and there's probably some degree of guilt prompting his participation in this documentary that his wife really wanted him to be a part of. You see it in the film. From the beginning, he never questions whether he is going to stay in the marriage or not. He always knew that was going to be the case. It was just that he had so much difficulty extricating himself from this affair in which he must have been emotionally pretty involved.

Our interactions with Mr and Mrs Li and Fei Fei were actually kept to a minimum as a film crew. Teacher Wang wanted it that way throughout the process because she didn't want us to inadvertently leak information that we shouldn't have at certain points. Everybody had to be kept in the dark at different stages based on her technique. So at the very end was our chance to dig in with them through interviews — 'How did you feel? Why did you do this? Why stay in the film?' I found Fei Fei baffling, but I was so struck by her response. She thought that the documentary was a gift from the husband to her, that it was going to be a document of their love story in which she was the central character. I think she kept staying in our filming process because she wanted to find out how their relationship was going to turn out. How things turned out, I think, was very unexpected for her. 

DALTON: Did the camera have any sway on them initially, and did that relationship shift in time?

LO: At first, I think they were nervous, but once they met us, they discovered our whole film crew was Chinese and we weren't directing anybody what to do ever. We were just trying to be respectful of their space and time and be as unintrusive as possible as they were going through this crisis. When we travelled back to China to show them a cut as it was, their only comments were about the editing and that the cinematography was beautiful and that we worked so hard on it because they could see us, a mostly female crew, carrying our heavy equipment over those four months. Their minds were more focused on the effort we took to capture this story. I think they kept close to their chest how they felt watching their love story on film like this. That is likely the case because it is very private, or they are remarkably unselfconscious, enlightened people who are just so generous. Either way, it's remarkable the amount that they let us into their lives and how much they were willing to reveal on camera. 

Sometimes, they'd break into song naturally. You see the wife doing that in bed, and the husband gets a little drunk and sings a song while crossing the street. I asked them about it, and they stated that when they were younger, working for state companies, they were in the amateur acting troops. So they have a flare in them that is probably a little exhibitionist, so being comfortable in front of the camera is built into them. That's why they were such incredible participants in this film. Also, Teacher Wang did say that had the cameras not been there, this case would've unfolded really differently. Not the case itself, but just the way people were behaving. Emotions would be far more heightened, and the cases wouldn't appear as gracious and dignified as they do. Everyone is trying to be their best selves in front of the camera. They're aware they're being recorded despite the circumstances that they're in. What I find most fascinating is the footage is basically this constant negotiation between them being aware of the camera and trying to be their best selves, competing with emotions that are probably darker and sadder.

DALTON: For such an irregular premise, your cinematography dextrously calls attention to the fact this is reality. It is very restrained; you're quite comfortable using singular static shots for entire periods.

LO: Chantal Akerman was one of my references. Jeanne Dielman has these long takes in domestic scenes. And based on our observations of Teacher Wang, most of her work takes place over tabletops. It's long hours and long conversations, unpacking things that are happening in these families. It was always remarkable to see the way she does her work. You see the changes in the conversation and people's minds as she's manoeuvring them. Within what she prompts them to say, you see their minds changing in real-time. As an observer of these scenes, I was so compelled. I wanted audiences to experience the same thing by keeping the camera still so that you can watch that play unfold in front of your eyes. We avoided reaction shots and editing in that way because we already knew that audiences would question the authenticity of these scenes. So, with as little cuts as possible, we're showing that we did not manipulate this. We tried to present it as objectively as possible with our framing and the static camera. And on a practical level, if we weren't moving the camera, we could leave the room after hitting record. We're not in the room for most of the scenes that are very sensitive and unpredictable, which is how I think they were so able to be less inhibited than if we were.

DALTON: Did you have a skeleton crew for the shoot? I imagine the fewer people required, the better.

LO: Yeah, we just put lavaliers on them. We didn't even have a boom mic because we didn't want it to draw attention to the correction process. I was the cinematographer, we had an assistant, and that was it.

DALTON: You do well to always maintain a sympathetic and ethical presentation. There's a version of this film that could have been shlock personified. Did you ever have to be mindful of retaining those qualities? 

LO: Yes. There were other cases that we filmed where the moral fibre of some of the people was really questionable. There was one moment where I was recording a husband telling his wife that he's totally loyal to her, and in the next, I was there with the same camera recording him making a move on a mistress in front of me. In my head, I was just completely baffled by what he thought was happening and why he would do this. It's so disrespectful to the wife knowing that I'm there. He didn't have the basic decency to at least keep up appearances, which I think the characters that are featured in the film do. They are respectful; everything is very restrained.

In those instances, we didn't want to feature them in our film because it would have undermined the whole premise and conceit of the project, which is wanting to understand why people do what they do in these circumstances. I wanted audiences to, within the course of 90 minutes, have the experience of feeling their empathy stretched towards corners of a love triangle that they would never have imagined stretching towards. I think that act of empathy expansion is a meaningful activity. That's what I experienced on the first day of filming with Teacher Wang at the tail end of one of the cases that are not in the film. This husband, who had cheated on his wife, was crying and sobbing because he felt like the socioeconomic difference between him and his wife led him to feel bullied, and he had so much more in common with his mistress, who was from a similarly poorer background. I was struck by that and wanted to convey that experience to audiences.

DALTON: I think you obtain a lot of empathy through your structure. The first act belongs to the wife as we witness her pain, the second act is the husband's as we start to comprehend why he has taken the route he has, and the third act grants the mistress the stage to be a three-dimensional individual. Was that your intent?

LO: I had the privilege of working with Charlotte Munch Bengtsen, who is this veteran editor who has edited incredible documentaries, including All That Breathes and The Truffle Hunters. She has such a strong storytelling sensibility. Like you said, there's a totally different version of this film that could be schlocky, salacious, and just about the sheer spectacle of mistress dispelling and how strange it is. But Charlotte and I worked together to actually minimise the mechanics of mistress dispelling from the film because we wanted the focus to really be about the characters. We wanted audiences to invest in, firstly, the wife's experience and then see the husband's perspective. Then it's a third, even greater narrative reveal that you unexpectedly get to also spend time with the mistress who's thus far been a phantom in the film. So that was very much intentional. 

DALTON: A quietly startling moment arrives near the end of the film when Teacher Wang breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the lens. Was that the sole instance she addressed you in that manner, or did you want to utilise that highlighting of artifice just once?

LO: Yeah, we could have broken the fourth wall many times because Teacher Wang talked to me quite a lot. But Charlotte and I really wanted the first two-thirds of the film to feel like a fiction film so that you're invested in character motivation, plot, how each life is unfolding, and what will happen to them. It's not about the making of the film, but we knew that the making of the film is such a big part of this documentary that it will be eating at people's minds. So we wanted to give that moment where she breaks the fourth wall to acknowledge this is how the sausage is made and this is all real. But that is also one of the rare moments in which Teacher Wang was truly flustered and didn't know what to do, so she had to break out of the scene to address us. I think it was really powerful to see her not in control for once because she's usually so in control. In that moment, she loses it, and then you see her try to instruct the wife what to say, and then the wife goes wildly off-script. That is really delightful to witness, but it felt like an important moment to acknowledge that a film crew is there and these are real people who are choosing to present their lives on film. 

DALTON: Do you see any similarities between a documentarian and a dispeller?

LO: There could be a case made that documentarians operate in a mode that is not so dissimilar from mistress dispellers. But in the case of this film, it didn't feel that way. I truly believe that in our production method, we were almost like simpletons who were there as observational filmmakers. We weren't directing people; we weren't intervening; we were trying not to be in the way as much as possible as they're going through this because there's so much power in seeing people grapple with their emotions in this way. I think most of the orchestration is done by Teacher Wang within the film.

DALTON: Has this endeavour taught you anything new about love, marriage, and or infidelity?

LO: A conclusion I came to was the depth of people's emotions is unknowable. Who belongs with who? What is the better path in life to take? Do you follow your desires, or do you stick with duty? Which kind of love will last longer? None of us totally know what we're doing when it comes to love from behind the camera, and witnessing the love lives of these people was very humbling. But having come to the end of the process and watched the film many times, I find it actually kind of hopeful that you see people striving to forgive each other, to forgive themselves, and to do the best that they can, given the circumstances of their lives.

The other conclusion I came to was that human beings have a profound desire to love and be connected, and sometimes a lot can get in the way. That's partly why I wove all those vignettes and tangents into different love industries in China where you're seeing a parental marriage market or a matchmaking company where it's saying things like, 'A woman's value decreases as she ages on the marital market'. When love is tied to things like how many assets you own or when love becomes commodified, then, of course, it's going to be hard for people to connect in a genuine way. At the heart of it, that's what everybody's striving to do if they can.

DALTON: Are you ready for Chinese audiences to experience this story?

LO: No! The participants agreed to be in the film on the condition that the film not be released publicly in China, and that's how they were able to be so uninhibited as we were filming. But even though the dynamics of family and love and courtship may seem more heightened in the Chinese context because people are more explicit about dating in ways that maybe in the West we are less so, I do think the struggles that people go through in trying to find a mate and trying to maintain love is universal. 

This article was originally published by The Curb