Dorothy Sing Zhang studied Fine Arts at the University College of London, Slade, and pursued film studies at Ecole de Leth (Denmark) with Lars Von Trier and Jørgen Leth. In 2021, she directed the documentary “BàBà” (Festival du Nouveau Cinéma). In addition to her film work, she also released the monograph Like Someone Alive (2023, Art Paper Editions). “Masterpiece Mommy“, her latest short premiered in Toronto this year and stars Chinese singer-songwriter Leah Dou.
Ada is distributed by Dogme23.
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The film begins with a doctor informing her patient of the results of her CT scan, with the phrase “I have some news, good and bad” looming quite heavily from the get go of the short. Meanwhile, the images, in slow motion for the most part, show a sequence of coins falling from a bag. The next scene is more ‘grounded’, showing a waiting room with Justine and her mother Tess before the latter goes in the whitest examination room ever to get a mammogram. Evidently a preview of what was mentioned before, the film presents the procedure quite thoroughly, with the whole thing, surprisingly, turning into a musical where both patient and doctor sing.
The setting then changes to the waiting room again, along with some flashbacks, where the women present highlight their tension by singing in a way that can be described as ritualistic, while communicating the tension deriving from the angst they all feel in the best fashion. The next scenes take place outside, in the rain, with the audiovisual approach being similar, despite the rather different narrative, eventually bringing us to the initial scene with the coins. Gradually we realize the hardships the two women face in their relationship and the event that started it all.
Although awkward in theory, the combination of family drama, documentary-style of presentation regarding the mammogram, and musical, actually works quite well, particularly because Dorothy Sing Zhang handles the last part with restraint, and not with the occasional intense dancing and singing other musicals exhibit. On the contrary, the singing here (there is no dancing) actually accentuates the atmosphere of each scene, with the tension and angst of the waiting room being indicative.
The presentation of the mammogram is also intense, with Zhang pulling no punches in the presentation of the way the breasts are pressured in order for the exam to happen, highlighting in that regard, that, despite their usual implementation on cinema (and in men’s minds) they are actually an organ that needs to be examined and occasionally gets cancer. The last aspect looms over the story of the film, essentially dictating a large part of the narrative.
Lastly, the family drama, which is presented mostly through flashbacks, intensifies the drama here, with the guilt Justine feels becoming more and more palpable as the story unfolds. The editing works particularly well in that regard, while the combination of the occasionally desaturated, occasionally quite bright but always polished cinematography works especially well throughout the movie, even more so in combination with the sound.
Leah Dou as Justine and Christina Tam as Tess exhibit a wonderful chemistry, both in the tense and the one ‘happy’ moment, but are also quite good individually, with the former’s singing in particular being rather impactful.
“Masterpiece Mommy” is an excellent film, that manages to portray the usual family drama genre of the Chinese diaspora films in a way that is as unique as it is intricate.
