Taiwan Docs

The subjects of my documentary work at an illegal trade, so the camera cannot reveal their identities. This has been quite a challenge for my photographic and presentational style. In this film things are constantly out of focus, or shown in bits and parts, or presented as sound with no corresponding image. You never see the protagonists' faces. The procurer, Old Guan, and the Mainland women in his charge approved my making this film, but it is nonetheless difficult to avoid an element of voyeurism. What perspective should I present things from? How should I place my camera? What is my own place? How should I present my subjects? And how do I protect them? I'm just one man with a camera, but sensitive issue of Mainland women in Taiwan's sex trade makes my position awkward. I have my concerns; they have their worries. Sometimes we feel alienated, other times intimate. We have our understanding, but we can get suspicious. We collaborate and we fight. Things seem so clear at times, but then they fade out of focus: where are the boundaries, after all?

I filmed "To See or Not to See" the only way I could. Illegal, fake cross-Straits marriages, the women coming and going in all the places offering sex services-the camera recorded everything, but I had to pretend I didn't see a thing.

And just like me, these women, confronted by the male gaze, by a moralizing public discourse, by daily smear attacks-they too have to pretend they don't see. Facing the cameraman and the photographer, they also often pretend not to notice. Facing their parents, their families, even themselves, they have no choice but to pretend not to see. "To See or Not to See" is like a black hole: it can absorb any problem. Disclosing the helpessness that drives people into this business and keeps them there, the film is a way for these Mainland women to purify their flesh. And it can provide a way out of the awkwardness of both filmer and filmed." -- Tsai Yi-Feng

Source: Taiwan International Documentary Festival