Detention (Fantasia Fest)
**Seen for the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival.
“Detention” has a similar perspective on horror than “The Devil’s Backbone,” which is to say, it uses horror as a way to put real-life political struggles and abuses into focus. There are ghosts within “Detention,” but they serve a purpose in illuminating guilt and pain brought on by living in an authoritarian society where to disobey meant death. Even going into the last part of the film, we are not quite prepared for where John Hsu’s film goes, and when it gets there, it is surprisingly poignant and affecting.
The setting of the film in 1962 Taiwan, at a point where the country is under a period of martial law known as the White Terror. Left-wing and communist writings and readings are strictly prohibited, and the death penalty can await anyone caught with such material. At a high school, a student (Fang Ray Shin, played by Gingle Wang) falls in love with her teacher, Mr. Chang (Meng-Po Fu), who leads a secret study group that reads banned books, along with another teacher, and students like Wei Chong Ting (Jing-Hua Tseng). One day, the group is disbanded, and the young student who inadvertently put her fellow students, and teachers, in jeopardy is trying to reconcile her memories, and turn right what happened.
The structure of this film is laid out fairly plainly with title cards on the screen, but even then, the structure of the movie has some twists and turns. Are the supernatural entities the characters see in the film real? Is this all in the main characters’s heads? The set pieces Hsu builds to are riveting and drenched with atmosphere, and the makeup and creature effects are superb. Once the film gets to its conclusion, we feel a bit more in tune with the movie’s perspective than we do for much of its running time, but how it uses that running time is effective and a nice treat for genre fans, while also opening a time capsule to a painful part of Taiwan history. It’s well worth your time to check it out.
