Premiering in the International Competition as the only Taiwanese film and 11 years after her previous film, Mei-ling Hsiao presents an intimate document of her daughter, Elodie who’s diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome spanning 12 years.
Mei-ling Hsiao captures time and growth through a portrait of her daughter, Xiang Yun in her latest film, Parallel World. Shot over 12 years, from digital video to iPhone, the world evolves rapidly, in comparison to Xiang Yun. The biggest hurdle of it all, where Mei-ling normalizes with compassion and care, is her daughter’s condition of Asperger’s syndrome. Throughout this near 3-hour film, we watch, listen, and feel the mother/daughter relationship go through the trials and tribulations of Xiang Yun’s transition to a young woman, specifically with Asperger’s.
Xiang Yun, early on is called Elodie. Her mother, Taiwanese and father, French are no longer together as they live in their respective countries, mainly leaving Mei-ling as the primary parent of Elodie. With Mei-ling’s artistic background as a filmmaker, she gives Elodie the freedom to pursue anything at an early age. Elodie, of course, picks up a creative and artistic side from a young age such as drawing, animation, and storytelling. Rather than observational, but an act of love, Mei-ling’s documenting of Elodie highlights her specific condition with a naturalistic lens allowing a raw take from both the mother and daughter.
Mei-ling enters the camera during Elodie’s occasional uncomfortable, but brutally vulnerable outbursts. Here, we see Elodie speak her thoughts with no filter, allowing her true emotions unravel out for Mei-ling. While Mei-ling listens and offers her help for Elodie’s difficulties, Elodie snaps back, leaving the two discontent. Raw moments like these are spread throughout, dealing with previous and future complications as we feel the duration of the film through Elodie’s aging.
The balancing act of showing all sides of Elodie’s Asperger’s does not at feel manipulative or arduous. With having Mei-ling being always observing and listening Elodie, and even showing her watch her film while editing, she as well is learning how to become a better mother by understanding Elodie. She does try to offer advice to Elodie during her outbursts but is immediately (and understandably) shut down by Elodie. As we see are offered an intimate look in this young girl’s unsolicited life, we see the sudden changes in mood, but gradual growth in her acceptance of her Asperger’s.
We see glimpses of Elodie’s social life, most often being filmed from school walking alone, while other groups of children are in packs. While Mei-ling observes and empathize with Elodie, Elodie explains her hardships through her drawings and storytelling. In one moving sequence, she was able to describe her struggles with friendship through a children’s book focusing on a cactus making friends. After the cactus is rejected by others, the cactus finds a friend in a porcupine, finding solace in similar experiences.
During Elodie’s difficulties at elementary school, Mei-ling decides that it would be better for her to continue her schooling for educational and training purposes in France, with her father, Gilles. This sort of cross-country journey for Elodie between Taiwan and France adds another difficulty of growing up. Elodie’s homesick becomes apparent at another outburst as she explains to her mother of missing the Taiwanese seas and landscapes. As we enter a more advanced technological stage through video chatting, Mei-ling begins a series of correspondences via iPhone, leaving a new form of communication between the two, and another way of Elodie to express herself. This begins the way Mei-ling begins to document Elodie, as we see the iPhone screen appear almost full frame with whatever background Mei-ling is in. She appears in her room checking on Elodie, or at the seaside to show Elodie what she would miss in Taiwan. Not only does Mei-ling receive the cold shoulder of Elodie when she was with her in Taiwan, but now screened calls and declining facetime calls. Disappointed, tired, and frustrated, we see Mei-ling to lose her patience revealing the hardships in parenting Elodie.
As Elodie continues through her high school years, more obstacles of life get in her way. The aging of her parents, independence, and her career start to reel in. Gilles now, helps Elodie in getting an internship for a pâtissier or baker as she leveraged her similar stop motion animation skills into bakery and cooking. Her main subject in school is in baking and now we see another obstacle of struggle as Elodie’s social skills are undeveloped or just generally not there. That raises the question of how are do we treat Elodie or people with Asperger’s in society where they are clearly skilled in the trade, but do not have emotional capacity for it. In Parallel World, Mei-ling depicts the great efforts Elodie and Mei-ling goes through in this formative period of one’s life.
