In his deut feature “Locust“, a gangster drama set up in one of Taipei’s precarious districts, Taiwanese director KEFF puts his troubled youth with speech impairment into lots of trouble. It is a film that doesn’t used the flashy camera work or special effects to manipulate the story, but focuses on the youngest members of the gangs who, empowered by the sense of being “somebody” cause a lot of mayhem in their town.
The film has celebrated its world premiere in Cannes prestigious Semaine de la Critique program, and we took he opportunity to speak to the helmer about his interestingly plotted film, which lets the news about the demonstrations in Hong Kong constantly running in the background. “Locust” is in no sense a political film, but it raises awareness of what was happening during the time when the world was mainly occupied with news surrounding the pandemic.
Your lead actor, Liu Wei Chen is a big screen first-timer. How did you find him?
When we first started looking for actors, his name came up, but when I looked at his CV, he only had “Boys Love” TV show in his credits. I have nothing against those shows. They’re good, but I certainly wouldn’t call them an- A recommendation. No, not even that. I wouldn’t call it peak acting. It’s not really where you go for the performance. It’s like popcorn TV. So when the casting agent suggested him, I was like: “There’s no way this guy could pull it off. You really want me to meet him?” And then everyone said that I should just meet him. He was the first guy I was meeting for the lead actor, so I thought that even if he were totally wrong, at least I had many more to look at. So, I just kicked the process off by meeting him to see how it goes. And he came to the meeting in character. He did not speak for the first 90 minutes. And when he asked me a question, he insisted on writing it down, which he did. And it just blew me away. And there was something about the way he looked and listened to me that just struck me.
You know what it was like? Like when you rescue an abandoned kitten, or an abandoned puppy, and you take them home, bathe them and feed them for the first time. And they look at you with that kind of expression: “Am I deserving of love?” This is how he looked at me, and I was like, Oh, my God. It took me nine months to be sure, because we were still trying to make sure we could make the film. But in the end, it was fitting that it was him because he was the first person I ever saw for the role, and there was no one else.
So, you were lucky that your producer and the rest of the people were so insistent about you meeting him.
I don’t think they necessarily believed in him. They just thought it would be a good thing to try. They were also skeptical. But then we did some camera tests. I had him do a couple of the scenes. Of course, he didn’t speak in any of those scenes, and it just blew everybody away. And then they turned good. And from then on, everybody was convinced there was no one better for the role.
The pre-production was long. When did you start developing this story, and when did you start shooting?
I lived in the United States for a while. I moved back to Taiwan in 2019. And then in the middle of 2020, after sending “Taipei Suicide Story” off to the festivals, I started getting an idea for what this film was. Once I was back in Taiwan, I wanted to relearn about my home country all over again. And I wanted to do it in such way that there wouldn’t be a place for assumptions or judgments. I just wanted to go around the island with open eyes, open ears, and an open heart.
I was not a stranger to Taiwan, but I could not call myself a local when I first came back. And so for me, it was two years, really, of living, and writing very slowly. If I heard a story that day that moved me, or if I encountered something or experienced something, I tried to incorporate it into my script. Half of the things in the movie are those that I saw, or that I was told.
Your film is a dash political as well. It’s not just the commentary on class differences and corruption. For instance, you are showing TV footage of the Hong Kong protests.
First of all, there are many places in the world where people are unable to say what they want to say because they will be imprisoned or threatened. And thankfully, Taiwan is not one of those places. That’s good. Taiwan has freedom of speech. Taiwan has freedom of expression. What I think is a problem is a combination of lot of factors. We censor ourselves more often than not. We are afraid to say what we want to say.
Is that a bit related to the wish of having a much broader audience and to be screened across Asia?
Of course, especially because we share a language with Mainland China. I’ll give you an example. Half of the actors we went out to would not meet with me because they would not risk either their present or their future Chinese careers. And part of the deep struggle to finish the movie was that many musicians, many bands would not grant us copyright to their music, not because they didn’t support the film or something like that, but because they were scared of it affecting their channel. And I completely understand that. I think, since the theme of my film is that you must find a way to continue living, who am I to deny all these people their chances of livelihood, of supporting themselves and supporting their families?
I consider filmmaking to be an extraordinary privilege. You are able to speak your mind about what you want to say to the world. And so I take it with a great deal of responsibility, and I push myself to say things not only that I feel, but also such that some people find it difficult to say. But it’s also about speaking on behalf of people who may not be able to say what they want to say.
This film is not political, and it is not attacking anybody. It is not trying to make a great statement. For me, it is an examination of Taiwan and Taiwanese society in the context of everything that is happening there and around the world, and it is honest to the reality of Taiwan. The unfortunate thing is that there are some people who feel that telling the truth has to be controversial. In Taiwan to just speak about itself, to open its mouth, is in itself controversial.
And that I do not agree with. I respect everyone else’s opinion about what they may have to say, how they feel about Taiwan or how they feel about my film. But, since we have the freedom of speech in Taiwan, I hope that you can respect that I have my right to express myself. And I do not pretend to represent something that is an absolute truth, or to present something that is a definitive portrayal. All I can do is to present what I see humbly, and give my portrayal, my point of view, to ask questions that I find interesting, and offer connections and insights that I think might be interesting to people.
The plot of “Locust” can be pilled off like an onion. There are so many layers to it.
I’m sure there are people who watch this film, and their level of engagement with it is not political or deep at all. If that’s the way that somebody wants to watch the film, I think it’s okay. But I think that there are deeper layers, and a deeper engagement. And I think that it’s not important whether you get the film or not, but if somebody wants to dig a a little deeper, they will discover a lot of hidden meanings, questions and hidden details. There isn’t just a critique of the Taiwanese society, but also a critique of our global society and human nature in itself.
You incorporate the feeling of estrangement and search for identity in this young person with a speech impairment. It’s quite a universal story. You are also addressing the global problem of gentrification and displacement.
Well, no matter where I go or where I lived in their world, this really is a universal problem. I think Taiwan, especially, is facing an interesting question because Taiwan had a great economic boom in the ’60s. By the ’80s, there was a term “the growth of the Four Tigers”. I believe it was Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and Taiwan was the most prospering. It developed very quickly in that time. And I think since the ’80s and ’90s, Taiwan has leveled off a little bit. So, you have that old landlord in my movie who says: “Taiwan hasn’t changed in 30 years”. And you can feel that. Taipei is an especially interesting place because you still have million dollar apartments being built for the ultra rich that look like something straight out of New York City or Dubai. But then there are parts of the city that are still mostly stuck in the ’80s. So Taipei and Taiwan face this interesting challenge, which is about how you always must continue to progress forward. The problem is – how do you maintain a link to the past?
How do you respect tradition and history and culture? I sometimes feel that we’re in such a rush to modernize that we don’t do it in the most proper, or the most respectful way. It’s like we want to build new apartments so quickly. We don’t ask ourselves how or why. It’s like the question in Jurassic Park – they were so obsessed with whether they could build it, but never thought whether they should. That’s really interesting. And it’s a very mixed thing because for me, all the villains in my film do not consider themselves to be villains. When Bruce (the big businessman who is buying off buildings in the district) says in a meeting: “How can Taiwan continue to improve if we don’t do this?” – he’s right. We must continue to modernize. And many of these old apartment buildings or old eateries have safety issues, they have infrastructure problems, and sanity issues. Those are all very real problems as well. So I think it’s a constant struggle and that we have to find a balance between modernizing and finding ways of maintaining what is beautiful and traditional in Taiwan. And I don’t feel that we’re always doing that.
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You decided to make a gangster movie, and to speak out about those problems at the same time. Was that your intention from the start, or did the idea occur to you later on in the process?
I was influenced by a number of factors. First of all, the first neighborhood that I lived in in Taiwan was very close to the gangster areas of Taipei. So going out for a smoke at 3:00 in the morning, I could see all the gangsters hanging out in front of 7/11. Or on my late night walks, I would pass by the KTV bars that are owned by the gangsters. So of course I was inspired by that. But I think there were two other things that influenced me. When you talk about youth feeling frustrated, I think of all young Taiwanese people who feel they have no future, if you’re stuck, and you carry some weight on your chest, that weight has to come off in some way. I was interested in exploring how someone who is 16 to 22-year-old deals with that. And, especially because gangsters also play quite a big part in Taiwanese society, I felt that there was a way for me to further explore this link.
But furthermore, it became more interesting to embrace this because, of course, Taiwan has no shortage of gangster films, just like Hong Kong, but whatt I have noticed is that for the last 20 years or so, all these gangster films were about about 40+ year-olds. There’s been a shortage of the 16, 17, 18-year-old gangsters who don’t know much about the world, but who know that when they are with their brothers and they have a baseball bat in their hands, they feel like kings of the world. That is more interesting to me than the men in suits. I’m still young, and I still remember that feeling of being an angry teenager or an angry young adult, and feeling this burning sensation in my chest. I recognize that maybe part of the reason why there are not a lot of films about young gangsters is that not a lot of young directors get a chance to make features in Taiwan.
Or they want to put their trumps on famous faces, seasoned actors who everybody knows.
Maybe, but to be fair, if you want to make a movie about a 16-year-old or 22-year-old, there are not a lot of established actors. Most of them will be in their 30s by the time you do that.
The photography is very discrete.
For some time now, I’ve been feeling there is the Wong Kar-Wai-fication of film. I have a great respect and admiration for Wong Kar-wai, but it seems like every film is trying to outdo his style. Every once in a while it makes sense. A film like the Neon Demon by Nicolas Winding Refn is so dripping in excess that I admire when the camera is so loud and self-aware. But I don’t feel that it’s always appropriate. Sometimes when you watch a film, you can feel the cinematographer, the director, winking at the audience going like, Isn’t this a great shot?
Of course, we dramatize a little bit the gangster life just because we want the audience to feel how cool they think they are. But in my portrayal of Taiwan, I was more interested in honesty. We stay behind the camera. We do not put a signature to our work, and we take what Taiwan gives us. I constantly stressed to our team that we were making 滷肉飯電影: “a braised pork rice film.” Braised pork rice is to a lot of people, the national dish of Taiwan. It’s the most simple dish. It’s just braised pork over rice, one of the most humblest, simplest dishes we can make. But when done correctly, the most complex in flavor. And in Taiwan, we constantly have arguments about which eatery makes the best one, because depending on the way they braise the pork, how they cook the rice, you can create hundreds of different kinds of combinations. So, I like to say that we make braze pork rice movies. We stay as simple as possible. And from the simplest things, we try to extract the most complex flavors.
For me, the focus is always on Taiwan and Taiwanese people. And so when you talk about cinematography, even in our selection of lenses, my DoP Nadim Carlsen and I were like: no distortions. And that was one of the main criteria for the film. Our camera isn’t a documentary camera, but it doesn’t call attention to itself. I really like that about our film. I like that we’re subdued. It’s interesting because you would never think a film that is at least half a genre or half a noir film should be subdued. Playing with a quiet loudness is interesting to me. And hopefully our film achieves that.
Your main protagonist is silent. I have the impression that it would be completely wrong if he could speak.
He represents, for me, not just a generation that can’t speak for itself, but also Taiwan that is unable to speak for itself or to even have a say in its own future. As a result, he’s a very passive character. There’s no active agency and decision. Life is just happening to you. And one day you wake up, and five years have passed. And so it became the very natural way to tell the story. When I sit down and think about a film, I usually have about 30 or 40 little ideas. One idea I always had was that it would be nice to do a film where my protagonist said very little or nothing at all, and to work with that challenge. But I never I really thought too much about it because it had to be in the right way, in the right context, or otherwise it would be just showing off. And suddenly when this film came together, I realized this was probably the only way I could do it.
But we made sure that Zhong-han symbolizes the Taiwanese youth, youth in general, and Taiwan itself. At the same time, we never confined him to a metaphor. Zong Han is most importantly, a living, breathing human being, full of flesh and blood. And what I like about him is that Liu Wei Chen, the actor, and I approach this character with great care and empathy. Wei Chen carries Zhong-han with a great amount of dignity. And I filmed him with the greatest respect, and I never pity him. I never condescend on him. He goes through a lot of horrible shit in this film, but I never look down on him. I just let him be, and I do not judge his decisions.
