Back in 2018, So Yo-hen directed “Gubuk” (Hut), an experimental project that focused on the experiences of Indonesian migrant workers in Taiwan, presented in a staged hut built of abandoned materials, with his actors reenacting their stories. “Dorm” follows the same recipe, this time focusing on Vietnamese female laborers, who arrive, one after the other at a staged dormitory this time, cluttered with bunk beds and clothes.
“Dorm” is screening in Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival
The film then moves with reenactments of their stories and experiences, focusing on the ways they are exploited by their employers (if they skip work more than three times, the employer can repatriate them) and the necessity that has forced them to do menial jobs, which occasionally are rather heavy or ones they have no experience on doing, in order to support their families back in Vietnam. A bit after the beginning, a labor unionist approaches them and tries to make them unionize, in order to face attitudes as the ones mentioned, but most of them just want to earn in peace and quiet, a will that obviously takes a toll on all of them in the long term. Eventually, however, an upheaval does begin.
The experimental presentation, if a bit perplexing in the beginning, is quite reinvigorating actually with So Yo-hen and his actors managing to highlight all the issues migrant workers face in Taiwan these days, through performance, the surrealistic but highly impactful setting, and through a combination of the two, with pointed metaphor. This last aspect is better exemplified in a recurring “trope” where a bundle of clothes has human hands coming out of it, in a metaphor about how unidentifiable these workers are from the people outside. Furthemore, the same “creature” is shown being the one to provide materials for the daily survival in the dorm, thus suggesting that these women are always willing to give a hand to help each other.
The visual approach in general is quite interesting, particularly in the way the set design is actually one of the protagonists, with So Yo-hen managing to build a world that includes factories, cottage industries and living quarters in a very secluded space, using what seems to be garbage in essence. This tactic works quite well as a kind of metaphoric documentary, with particularly the scenes where the girls are sitting drinking wine and discussing or the ones that they appear to work being rather realistic, despite the fact that much of what is happening is implied rather than depicted.
That the space these girls inhabit is dark, silent, and with a rather low ceiling, to the point that they frequently have to crawl, is another metaphor for their living circumstances, while as one of the older workers says to the rookie “someone is always sleeping-be quiet” highlights the situation in such dorms quite eloquently. Furthermore, when the light does come in eventually, the impact is rather significant, in one of the most impressive sequences of the film.
“Dorm” is definitely a weird movie, particularly since its premises occasionally seem like those of a horror movie. At the same time, however, the experimental approach is quite eloquent in the social issues So Yo-hen wanted to portray, and through its uniqueness, truly reinvigorating for the whole genre of documentary.
