Dis­cov­er the exact­ing, emo­tion­al films of Patrick Wang

Any­one tasked with writ­ing about the work of film­mak­er Patrick Wang will inevitably feel a degree of pan­ic once putting pen to paper. Sim­i­lar feel­ings might befall first-time view­ers of his films; the sin­gu­lar con­flu­ence of gen­res, tones and for­mal rigour found in Wang’s work can ini­tial­ly be jarring.

Each work is so effort­less­ly dense, exper­i­men­tal, inven­tive and emo­tion­al that it’s almost impos­si­ble to do them jus­tice with mere words alone, or a sin­gle view­ing. This isn’t even my first attempt to do just that and I’m feel­ing ner­vous. Still, if Wang’s films have taught me any­thing, it’s that the fear and anx­i­ety we feel about any major life chal­lenge – be it cre­ative pur­suit, tran­si­tion, or tragedy – is a process worth embracing.

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, Wang’s films exert such a pro­found impact pre­cise­ly because of the var­i­ous ways in which they depict our instinct to resist change, both indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly. His 2011 film In the Fam­i­ly is an espe­cial­ly mov­ing exam­ple of such a com­pli­cat­ed, thorny situation.

At the time of its release, the film became some­thing of an indie sen­sa­tion after receiv­ing a rave review from Roger Ebert. But there wouldn’t have been an Ebert review if not for the stal­wart work by online crit­ics like Rob Human­ick of Slant Mag­a­zine, and the sup­port of events like San Diego Asian Film Fes­ti­val, both of which pro­vid­ed the film a plat­form to gain a wider audience.

Thank­ful­ly that’s exact­ly what hap­pened, which con­sid­er­ing the film’s length (3 hours) and director’s lack of name recog­ni­tion makes it even more of a mod­ern mir­a­cle. Look­ing back though, I’m hard-pressed to think of a more impor­tant Amer­i­can debut film in the last decade. In the Fam­i­ly revolves around Joey Williams (Patrick Wang), a suc­cess­ful con­trac­tor who lives with his part­ner Cody Hines (Trevor St John) in the Amer­i­can South. Togeth­er, they have raised Cody’s bio­log­i­cal son Chip (Sebas­t­ian Brodzi­ak) for the last six years in a home of rel­a­tive hap­pi­ness and fulfilment.

This all changes when Cody is trag­i­cal­ly killed in a car acci­dent. In the weeks that fol­low, Joey suf­fers a dou­ble tragedy of sorts when Cody’s sis­ter claims guardian­ship over Chip, reveal­ing the var­i­ous inad­e­qua­cies of a legal sys­tem that doesn’t under­stand or pro­tect non-tra­di­tion­al fam­i­lies. Using long takes with sta­t­ic cam­era set-ups, Wang stages one stun­ning dia­logue scene after the next, giv­ing his actors space to bring the full weight of this human con­flict to bear.

Some­times mem­o­ries of the past inter­rupt these moments, flash­backs that seem to be liv­ing along­side the action instead of sep­a­rate­ly. In the Fam­i­ly cul­mi­nates in a near­ly 40-minute depo­si­tion scene that remains one of Wang’s finest achieve­ments, and per­fect­ly sym­bol­is­es the hope he sees in human­i­ty, and our abil­i­ty to tran­scend the fear that can eas­i­ly rav­age a fam­i­ly (or com­mu­ni­ty) if unchecked.

2015’s The Grief of Oth­ers, which Wang adapt­ed for the screen from Leah Hager Cohen’s nov­el of the same name, is an even more dev­as­tat­ing­ly raw exam­ple of this faith in our emo­tion­al capac­i­ty to endure. The bro­ken fam­i­ly at the cen­tre may live under the same roof, but each feels res­olute­ly alone in life. Ricky (Wendy Moniz) has just expe­ri­enced a trau­mat­ic preg­nan­cy that result­ed in the death of her baby, of which all the par­tic­u­lars she kept from her hus­band John (Trevor St John) until the last minute. Their two chil­dren – bul­lied teenag­er Paul (Jere­my Shin­der) and spright­ly tween Bis­cuit (Oona Lau­rence) – are both exper­i­ment­ing with modes of self-expres­sion that could be destructive.

Adopt­ing an even more avant-garde approach than In The Fam­i­ly, Wang upends all sense of lin­ear tem­po­ral­i­ty by pre­sent­ing a frac­tured nar­ra­tive that’s always on the cusp of col­laps­ing. Once again, flash­backs seem to appear out of the ether, con­jured by ghosts to remind of the fes­ter­ing trau­mas that must be con­front­ed. Heavy guilt weighs on these char­ac­ters to the point that the film itself begins to reflect their splin­ter­ing selves in through aes­thet­ic means. The use of super­im­po­si­tion, iris shots and vary­ing film speeds show the diver­si­ty of Wang’s styl­is­tic inter­ests, and yet, each feels of a piece with this inti­mate explo­ration of loss and renewal.

While less emo­tion­al­ly gut­ting that his pre­vi­ous two films, Wang’s mas­ter­ful 2018 dip­tych A Bread Fac­to­ry Part I: For the Sake of Gold and Part II: Walk With Me a While are no less impres­sive, and reveals a film­mak­er whose lofty ambi­tions and love of cin­e­ma has only just begun to scratch the surface.

Set in the fic­tion­al upstate New York town of Check­ford, the films grap­ple with cor­po­ra­ti­za­tion of art, how local pol­i­tics can be manip­u­lat­ed and the essen­tial role of print jour­nal­ism to cov­er it all. If the film has lead char­ac­ters, they are immov­able cou­ple Dororthea (Tyne Dai­ly) and Gre­ta (Elis­a­beth Hen­ry), devout pro­pri­etors of the leg­endary local arts space that has become the flash­point for a city coun­cil vote over edu­ca­tion fund­ing. But this film real­ly belongs to the col­lec­tive of ornery film­mak­ers, pas­sion­ate actors, dis­cern­ing crit­ics, sup­port­ive busi­ness own­ers, grumpy eccentrics, and pre­co­cious kids who make up Wang’s dou­ble shot mosaic.

For my mon­ey, the most piv­otal scene takes place between the tena­cious news­pa­per edi­tor (Glyn­nis O’Connor) and her naïve intern Max (Zachary Sayle). She’s just called him out for quot­ing a press release in his puff piece on the town’s lat­est attrac­tion: a fraud­u­lent and cor­rupt post-mod­ern per­for­mance artist duo named May Ray. As the teenag­er slow­ly realis­es the extent of his betray­al to jour­nal­is­tic ethics, she earnest­ly com­forts him by say­ing, ​“Don’t run away from this moment.” In one way or anoth­er, all of Patrick Wang’s films embody the wis­dom and empa­thy of this state­ment with every fibre of their cin­e­mat­ic being.

The films of Patrick Wang are in UK cin­e­ma from 18 Feb and on demand in March.