Now streaming at the Museum of the Moving Image’s Virtual Cinema, Nina Wu offers a snarling critique of gender dynamics within the movie business. Director Midi Z analyzes a woman’s romance with cinema, and how the industry’s mise en scène can feel at once inspiring and suffocating. Nina Wu’s visual design reminds of Stanley Kubrick’s Overlook Hotel in The Shining; a nightmarish spirit that torments the protagonist. The film’s aesthetics and directorial form position the audience as a passive observer while a distressed woman suffers a mental breakdown, with the camera backing away like a frightened witness at a crime scene.
Nina Wu stars Ke-Xi Wu as the title character, a social media star who dreams of developing a mainstream movie career in Taipei. She’s a professionally-trained actress but has only appeared in short films and commercials. When Nina’s agent informs her of a potentially career-changing opportunity, she considers the long-term benefits and ultimately lands a lead role in “Romance of the Spies.” However, there’s a catch: Nina must agree to a ménage à trois nude scene, one that opens up Pandora’s Box in the Taiwanese film industry.
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Midi Z and cinematographer Florian Zinke take a naturalistic approach early on by highlighting Nina’s home life. There’s a cinéma vérité vibe as the protagonist cooks a meal, and then literally lets her hair down for a live stream with fans. When Nina meets with her patronizing agent, however, she’s surrounded by bright lights and industry promises, and reluctantly agrees to become more vulnerable while pursuing bigger roles. Midi Z and Zinke’s visuals are both aesthetically-pleasing and claustrophobic; the images tighten and expand in conjunction with Nina’s breathing patterns and perspective.
Nina Wu quickly takes a surrealistic turn, with Zinke using transposed images to make Nina look like a restless spirit during an audition, her body floating over a cityscape while executives gauge her industry value. “They’re not only destroying my body,” Nina says, “but my soul.” From this point forward, Midi Z plays with various genre tropes while provoking the audience with aggressive imagery. Nina Wu may not be a traditional horror film, but the protagonist’s experiences are indeed terrifying and damaging to her mental health, which automatically qualifies the work as a sub-genre production. In these social spaces, no one can hear Nina’s silent screams.
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During an April 2021 appearance on the “Colors of the Dark” podcast, author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas briefly discusses the role of physical art in horror. She specifically cites the giallo sub-genre, and how the use of artistic works complement the visual design of various productions, with the color palettes often featuring bold reds and yellows. In Nina Wu, Midi Z often floods the frame with bold colors, and contrasts them not with physical art but rather familiar cinematic imagery via the mise en scène. For example, a dramatic first act moment shows Nina being physically slapped by her director — an act that will instantaneously produce the desired emotions for the scene. In the background: blue shades and a blue lamp; in the foreground, a distressed Nina in beige and a beige tree design on the wall behind her. Midi Z and Zinke expertly frame their lead actress, and use Kubrickian aesthetics to capture Nina’s confusion and despair.
Midi Z’s directorial form stands out most during a first act punctuation moment. As Nina prepares to shoot a big sex scene with two male actors, a wide shot establishes the audience as the cinematographer while the performers pose in five sexually-suggestive positions. Once again, Midi Z incorporates lamps and shades of red, and the staging itself essentially functions as a piece of physical art; a slight variation on the giallo concept that Heller references during her “Colors of the Dark” appearance. In Nina Wu, there’s a meta filmmaking aspect throughout the first half, as the lines between reality and fantasy are consistently blurred. The protagonist identifies a huge opportunity in the movie industry, but then blocks out painful memories associated with the experience. Nina isn’t viewed as a woman, but rather as a machine that will produce emotions when the right buttons are pushed. In a jarring cut during the sex scene sequence, Midi Z transitions to a close-up on Nina’s face, with her heavy breathing carrying over into the next scene — another reminder to the audience of their inadvertent complicity.
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Nina Wu has been marketed as a #MeToo thriller, which seems a bit reductive given the overall artistry. The narrative does indeed revolve around the protagonist’s horrific experiences with predatory and abusive men, but the psychological horror elements and filmmaking execution results in astonishing vignettes that could work as stand-alone shorts. Numerous fourth-wall breaks elevate the overall aesthetics and spotlight the director’s impeccable form, but it’s Wu’s staggering, in-your-face lead performance and her character’s shifting range of emotions — along with the context for those emotions — that add so much depth and shock value. Nina Wu isn’t just a “#MeToo thriller” or “slow burn cinema,” it’s a progressive spin on psychological horror and a master class in visceral visual design.
Q.V. Hough (@QVHough) is Vague Visages’ founding editor.
Categories: 2010s, 2020s, 2021 Film Essays, 2021 Horror Reviews, Drama, Featured, Film Essays, Horror
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