Cannes 2024 (Directors’ Fortnight): Mongrel (by Chiang Wei Liang & You Qiao Yin) | Review

Taiwan-based Singaporean filmmaker Chiang Wei Liang has been directing short films focusing on the commentary of the transnational phenomena taking place within modern-day Asia, where many Southeast Asians plunge into the dark side of migrant labor. His 2016 film Jin zhi xia mao tells the story of two migrant workers seeking solutions on an island where anchorage is prohibited. In the short film Luzon, a Chinese nuclear waste barrel draws a Taiwanese fisherman and his Filipino counterpart into a maritime conflict. His VR work Only the Mountain Remains is about a pregnant Thai migrant escaping from the midlands of Southern Taiwan and enlisting the help of a fellow Indonesian runaway to locate the father of her child. For his debut feature film, which premiered at the 56th Directors’ Fortnight, Mongrel (co-directed by Yin You Qiao) follows Southeast Asian migrants as they are exploited and abused in provincial Taiwan.

In a series of beautiful frames, Wei Liang sets up a chain of shiveringly realistic nightmares that so many people are living through at this very moment. Like many Vietnamese, Filipinos, Indonesians, and Thais, Oom (played by Wanlop Rungkumjad, best known for Manta Ray) is an illegal worker in a rough province of Taiwan. He helps a mentally handicapped man, Hui (Kuo Shu-wei), and his elderly mother, Mei (Lu Yi-ching), at home with patience and gentleness. Under the thumb of an unscrupulous boss, Hsing, he can’t refuse any of the jobs he’s given. He is also trafficking more migrants when they arrive at the airport.

As his boss’s confidant, Oom will do anything, including calming down his migrant colleagues who demand to know when they will be paid. They can’t leave, but they can’t keep going if they are not getting paid. That’s a cruel reality shown in Chiang Wei Liang’s film. When an Indonesian migrant, Indri, falls sick, the situation at the dormitory becomes chaotic, but Oom remains calm.

Captured by the brilliant work of Michaël Capron, whose credits include Bruno Reidal and Camping du lac, Mongrel is a moving and immersive journey that explores human morality, deeply entrenched in the sensuality of the Taiwanese mountains. Wei Liang presents events in a quiet, matter-of-fact way. The film is slow-paced, deliberately rolled out, but for those who seek an artistry of its time and place, Mongrel is created with meaning.

When Indri dies, Oom and his boss take her body to the mountain, not to be buried but to be thrown away in the forest. This distressing act shows how one can control another’s body. In another scene, when Mother Mei asks Oom to euthanize her son, he is conflicted about how to react to her desperate request. With its powerfully significant form, Mongrel is also a story about human connection, and it carries a literal meaning.

Chiang Wei Liang’s detailed process in the making of Mongrel shows how deeply concerned he is about this topic. Despite the film being centered on a Thai migrant, you can hear many Indonesians shouting in the dormitory, and in one scene at the club, an Indonesian song plays in the background. This shows real facts about the transnational phenomena between Taiwan and Indonesia, as Taiwan (along with Hong Kong and Malaysia) has become one of the largest destinations for Indonesian Migrant Workers (TKI), sometimes described in Indonesian society as a low, disreputable occupation. They usually do not return for a few years; many take 10 years to get back. But for migrant workers like Indri, they will never return to their families.

Mongrel is produced by Singaporean outfit E&W Films, Taiwan’s Le Petit Jardin, and France’s Deuxième Ligne Films. Alpha Violet is handling the world sales.

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