The Chens

The Chens is a documentary short in which I record the daily life of my family and externalize the conflicts with children performing as my family members. While it is an assignment of the theme, My Family, for Fundamental Film Directing class, it has always been difficult to know what kind of family I have and how I attach to them. Since film directing could be a process of being true to oneself, I set the camera at mostly one position in our house to see what I could get. The result is that these mundane pieces of daily life actually tell much: they tell the story of generation gap, a modern Taiwanese family struggling between a traditional, big family and a nuclear family; feminism and violence, the absence of father in this family; and perhaps a little inequality, some are allocated with little space so find themselves too crowded in their home. Because no one had a private room at home, I used to wander around the neighborhood for hours to avoid my family. Recording the family rather makes me realize that I am not the only person who find herself uncomfortable at home—everyone is avoiding something in this house. Even though there are conflicts, my mother does her best to keep all members together. Like the wall of this house, she supports her children and builds the gap between them and the absent father. She represents the color, white, as she gives up her original colors to blend into the Chens. Maybe some see white as a bland color, but it is the fundamental color used in painting, like the film score of her playing ukulele, weaving every scene together. Although the film doesn't reveal any major conflict, we probably have to figure this family out someday, like most families do, but compromise and tension are allowed here, because we are a family.