This is one of those documentaries where you are surprised folk agreed to be in it at all, given how intimate and sensitive the subject is.
Mistress Dispeller follows a wife discovering her husband of many years has begun having an affair with a much younger woman. Mrs Li chooses to deal with the situation by hiring a mistress dispeller. This is a service in China, kinda like a reverse honey trap – instead of hiring someone to prove your man’s a cheater, you are hiring someone to stop your man cheating. In steps Miss Wang.
Miss Wang is introduced by Mrs Li to her husband, who coaxes the story out of him, and through him makes contact with the woman he is having an affair with, Fei Fei. She always comes across as non-judgemental, empathetic, offering to help, and protect their confidence and their reputation. And she uses her influence to slowly dislodge Fei Fei from the Lis’ lives.
The documentary also takes the same tack, showing each person without judgement, with sympathy and sensitivity. It is up to you as the audience to form your own opinion, both about the people involved, their choices, and how the mistress dispeller service works.
I think the film did very well in this regard. The film initially focuses on Mrs Li, your sympathy is naturally with her as the injured party, but when the focus moves to her husband, it also treats him with the same humanising lens, showing his shame, his unhappiness at knowing that no matter what he chooses to do now, it will hurt someone he cares about. And finally Fei Fei is also shown with tenderness, as someone who is young and lonely, who has kind of lost hope, and has sought comfort in a romance with a much older married man.
The tactics of the mistress dispeller service are equally shown without judgement, as a hired service to untangle a knot in people’s lives. All three people involved do not want exposure of their issue, and all want it resolved, and in some ways, the service can be said to be simply coming in and forcing people to deal with the reality of the situation. It could be argued that yes, there is an element of deception, but no more than any private detective would use, and an element of manipulation, but no more than is already going on as part and parcel of the existing affair.
This is the part where I have to say, the film might be able to take that step back, but I in the audience could not. The mistress dispeller service is very manipulative, and were it not for the documentary, only the person who hired them would even know who Miss Wang truly was. Obviously it was necessary for the filmmakers to gain access to the mistress dispeller service for them to be open and non-judgemental in how they portrayed them, and I think it’s great because otherwise we would never get to see this really interesting look at what actually goes on. But wow, befriending people so you can end their relationships, orchestrating arguments between couples, sabotaging people’s dates, it is all very unsettling to watch.
The other thing this film shows very well, even if it doesn’t comment on it, is the absolutely rigidity and uniformity of society’s expectations of romantic relationships. There is only one type of romantic relationship that should take place, it is compulsory heterosexual lifelong married monogamy. And when presented with the fact that people actually have all sorts of experiences, all that happens is to double-down on enforcement.
Fascinating documentary handled with superb sensitivity which will leave you unpacking the ethical and moral dimensions long after it’s over.