NOBODY

The protagonist of NOBODY might be classified by some as a menace to society. Referred to only as “Weirdo,” an elderly tailor (referred to as “he”) follows the same routine day after day, wandering through the city, spitting loogies wherever and whenever. Weirdo (Jian Fu Sang) slowly befriends an uncouth girl, ZhenZhen (Wu Ya Ruo) who breaks into his apartment with the aim of spying on her cheating father through his window, and exposing her father’s infidelity to her overprotective housewife mother. As their unique friendship develops, with ZhenZhen tagging along Weirdo’s spit-filled bus rides, they befall the gaze and judgement of curious onlookers who suspect their relationship to be of a predatory nature.

NOBODY offers a sensitive, humanist examination of public and private lives, and the easy gaps in perception that occur when boundaries become blurred. With each character living with their own set of secrets that transgress interior and exterior, it isn’t long before things boil to the surface, exposing deeply held traumas and bringing disparate worlds together in unexpected ways. In her feature debut, director Lin Chun-hua has produced a work that both urges sympathy and understanding, and complicates recent narratives of Taiwan’s remarkable progress in attitudes towards queer sex, gender, and kinship.

–Justin Nguyen