Small Talk Between Family Members but For Everyone: Interview with Director Huang Hui-chen
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This article is part of the 25th issue of LEAP — Voices of Youth e-letter. Subscribe now.
Released in Taiwan in 2017, Small Talk is a documentary spanning more than two decades, recording the lives of a lesbian mother and her daughter.
The daughter is the film’s director, Huang Hui-chen. Intending to talk to and reconcile with her mother, Huang picked up her camera in an attempt to understand her mother anew, as well as to reexamine their close, yet distant relationship.
The documentary tells the story of an older lesbian who experienced many challenges being herself in a traditional society, and gender issues such as domestic violence and sexual assault are covered in the film, as the theme directly touches upon sensitive taboos in Taiwanese society. From filming to release, the timeframe of the production coincided with the same-sex marriage movement in Taiwan. Particularly given the courage of the director to expose herself and her family in such a manner, the film won the 2017 Teddy Award in the Best Documentary category at Berlin International Film Festival.
“I hoped that the film, as an open text, would become a platform for conversation. It includes my talks with myself and my mother, as well as those by my mother with herself and society,” Huang recalled that the film was completed right at the time when these conversations happened to start, “There was a subtle feeling as if some divine being had pre-arranged this.”
Starting a Conversation Through Filming, Telling the Story of Her Own Family
Many viewers of Small Talk told Hui-chen Huang: “You’re so brave!” However, she replies: “I do not consider myself exceptionally brave. I simply reached a point in time when I just have to do this.”
Huang’s recording began in 1998, and the original motivation was a sense of anger toward the world. At the age of 20, Huang couldn’t understand why an underprivileged girl like herself, with a lesbian mother, had to keep the “skeleton in the closet” and be forced to endure so much unnecessary struggle. “I usually joke that if I completed the film when I was 20, it would have been a film filled with accusations.”
Unexpectedly, the tone of her film changed after the birth of her daughter in 2012.
“My daughter is actually my mentor in life,” she said. Since she took on the role of a mother, Huang began to ask herself: “What kind of mother do I want to become? What led me to become who I am today?” These questions allowed her to go from unilateral finger-pointing to trying to start conversations through different perspectives and understand the relationships between people.
The filming was part of the reason why such conversations could even take place. Huang admits that the pressure behind the camera forced her to stop avoiding dialogue with her mother. Furthermore, the role of the cameraperson as an outsider also caused her mother to be more willing to tell her story. “The less familiar people are with one another, the more kind they become to each other. She felt that since the cameraperson never heard of those stories, she needed to tell these stories in a more detailed way.”
A Glimpse Into the Gender Issues of Modern Society Through Conversation
The film is more than just a compilation of daily conversations in a family. It also serves as an examination of society as well as a chance to talk with the public.
According to Huang, every time she held a post-premiere conference, there would always be someone from the audience who would speak up about their own stories of being raped. These victims ranged from high school and university students to older people. “They always say: ‘Thank you for speaking out!’.”
Huang wanted to speak out due to her awareness of victim-blaming in society. However, the sheer frequency of sexual assaults was beyond her imagination. “What exactly went wrong in our society to allow such cases to keep happening, and prevent victims from healing?”
Small Talk’s release also coincided with the year when Taiwan’s Supreme Court announced that the barring of same-sex marriage by the Civil Code was unconstitutional.
The film also laid a foundation for conversations. Huang provided the example of an aunt of one of her gay friends. Originally homophobic, she gained new understandings from the film. “It was the first time she realized that homosexual people are just normal people and that they could be the middle-aged woman you meet every day in markets.”
Another example was that when Huang traveled to a rural region, where an elderly individual expressed to her after the film that children adopted by same-sex couples might become involved in incest due to their “lack of roots”. Huang explained to him immediately that it would be the same for children adopted by heterosexual couples, and the elderly individual came to understood his logical fallacy.
Huang believes that “We need to discover the source of their misunderstandings and concerns, and then talk to them in a language they can understand. I believe they are open to conversations.”
Post-Conversation Understanding and Changes
The film also brought change among Hui-chen Huang’s family members. Her younger sister, who scarcely talked about her mother’s sexual orientation previously, began sharing information about the film on social media. “I told my sister that she finally came out of the closet!” The film interviews also mended her relationship with her uncle and overall family.
“During the filming process, even though we were seemingly talking to each other, it didn’t seem like we had reached a real understanding,” Huang said. It was only after watching the film together on the big screen that the relationship between her and her mother began to change. “Now that we have the chance to step back and see what each other has experienced, it helps us understand our relationship.”
When Huang’s mother heard positive feedback from others, it also helped her to see her past differently. “The feedback from the audience was an important factor in helping my mother understand her own life from a different perspective.”
Huang cited a Korean production friend of hers: “The development, completion, and viewing of every film are already predetermined.” Small Talk was a film where everyone contributed to its completion, and every moment of understanding and change happened at the optimal time.
Also in This Issue:
Expanding Imagination of People Through Dramas: Interview with Chen Wei-ling, Director of On Children
Through a Taiwanese series of academic elitism, parent-child relationships and unreasonable expectations on mothers are heatedly discussed.
Author : Lin Si-hou
Freelance journalist exploring gender and public issues.
