"Mistress Dispeller" with Elizabeth Lo

You find out your husband of many years is cheating on you, but you still love him anddesperately want to keep your family together. What do you do? In Elizabeth Lo’s (“Stray”) remarkable documentary “Mistress Dispeller,” we are introduced to a heart broken Mrs. Li, who hires a mistress dispeller to end her husband’s affair and save her marriage.  Yes, it’s true: in modern-day China, mistress dispelling is an actual profession, and Teacher Wang has more business than she can handle.

 

Elizabeth joins Ken on the pod to discuss the fascinating world of mistress dispelling and how she and her creative collaborators managed to win the trust of Mrs. Li and the other players in this doomed love triangle. From the time Teacher Wang “injects herself organically” into the threesome until the film’s inevitable dénouement, we can hardly believe the access we have to such an enthralling domestic drama unfolding in real-time. But as lies and deceptions give way to a final confrontation, the filmmaking itself remains steadfast, as real and beautiful as it gets.

 

“Mistress Dispeller” has been named to this year’s Oscar shortlist in the Documentary Feature Film category. The film is available for rent on Apple TV.

 

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“Gunda”

  

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