OIAF Review: Girlfriends of Father excavates shared trauma within dizzying sci-fi trappings

I'm a big fan of going into a movie blind. It's fun to just jump in, not knowing what to expect, and being truly in the palm of the filmmakers' hands, right where they want you, with no prior knowledge or idea or expectation. For whatever reason, before hitting play on Xi Chen's Girlfriends of Father, one of the features playing in competition at OIAF this year, I decided to read the little blurb on the Vimeo page. I'm glad I did, because I think this is a movie that you need to have some context for going in. It is a really strange ride, occasionally hard to follow even with an idea of the plot, and often a barrage on the senses. It's a movie that would benefit from repeat viewings, though it's not one I would be particularly keen to revisit.

So yeah, before you watch it, read up on it. Find an interview, a synopsis, a review. Read this review, sure, but if you want to know what happens in this movie, I also still kind of do. This may be my least informative review ever, but as always, I'll try to make some sense of what I've watched.

(And lest my confusion be misconstrued, I enjoyed watching this movie. I think it's a bold vision, and it's always interesting. Just a bit baffling, which is okay.)

Here's a bit of what Xi Chen writes on the film's Vimeo screener page:

The father had once been a violent man; his domestic abuse drove two women out of his life, and afterward, he sank into alcoholism. One day, his son sustained a severe injury—so severe that the hospital offered little hope for recovery. Following this, the son decided to leave home behind. On his journey, he unexpectedly crossed paths with his father's former girlfriends, and three of them choose each other in the present.

With that in mind, I was surprised when the film opens on a battle happening between ships in outer space. At first, I thought what I was seeing was an elaborate logo presentation for a production company, but no. We dive right into the movie. No company logos, as this is a one-man show. Which is wildly impressive, and leads to one of my favorite moments in the movie: about 20 minutes in or so, the credits pop up on the right side of the screen, telling you that Xi Chen did everything for this movie. It's like 15 or 20 credits with his name. Absolutely baller move, and well-deserved. It's incredible that he achieved this.

I spent a lot of the early movie trying to understand who the characters were, particularly who the son was. There's a flower character who's featured early on who gets shot out of the sky and captured, so I thought that was him, but instead it seems like that's more setting up the violent world in which this movie takes place. Eventually, it becomes clearer. The son spends most of the movie with his top half missing, flanked by his father's two ex-girlfriends (who look alike but with different color schemes: blue and orange). The flower, it ends up, is part of a species who are often used as a power source. For our gang of heroes, the flower dutifully jumps into a certain chamber of their various ships, where he provides power to move and, if needed, shoot.

And there is a lot of shooting. A big part of this movie is looking at what it's like to be an agent of peace, creation, healing, and restoration in a world that is not interested in any of those things. This is a violent world, one where nearly every landscape or cityscape is constantly being hit with laser fire and explosions. We aren't privy to the machinations of this war (or these wars -- maybe there are multiple overlapping and intersecting). In the context of the film, what matters is that our characters exist within this context of violence and chaos, just as they all share the violent history of having known the Father. While their goal isn't explicit, it seems like they're simply fleeing the violence, trying to find a safe place to land and put down roots, a place where they can plant flowers that won't be trampled and violently handled for pollination. Indeed, one of the most shocking bits of violence in the movie is a forced pollination sequence, in which the flowers are handled so roughly, the collection instrument handled so bluntly, it takes on the force of an assault.

If you watch the movie simply as a bunch of sci-fi action sequences, it lands a little better than it does as a movie with deeper thematic and narrative concerns. The scale of this world is astounding, and there are so many dazzling sequences full of colossal ships, multi-colored weaponry, and alien architecture. The visuals made me think of indie video games like Journey or Monument Valley, a sort of elegant, artful simplicity with really thoughtful design. It's a feast for the eyes, even as it's something of an assault on the ears. There's no dialogue, but there's nearly constant sound. A lot of the characters make little grunts and beeps and chirps as they move, which can get really repetitive. It reminds me of playing an N64 game where the character makes the exact same sound every time you do an action (this comparison brought to you by watching my husband's recent replay of Banjo-Kazooie).

While the film's story kind of gets lost in the chaos, in the moments where it does become more legible, it's extremely effective and quite moving. The final act, in particular, is stunning, and speaks to the healing quality of community in the wake of shared trauma, taking the act of leaning on others to an imaginative extreme. It also doesn't pull its punches when it comes to the character of the Father. I won't spoil anything, but I found the events of the ending extremely satisfying.

And like I said, after watching the film, I feel like watching it again would reveal a whole new movie. Now I know the world, the way it moves, its rules, its characters. I wish I had been able to find my footing more quickly during my first watch, as it would've made for a less frustrating viewing experience, but I also appreciate that this isn't a movie that holds your hand. It plunges you into its world and trusts you to find your way through it. Whether you do or not, you're sure to witness some stunning and bizarre sights along the way.