The most significant change introduced by new Berlinale director Tricia Tuttle is the cancellation of the Encounters sidebar which hosted many arthouse gems supposedly too experimental for the main competition. In its stead, Perspectives––a competitive section dedicated to first films––was created. Its inaugural edition includes Eel, the feature debut of Taiwanese visual artist Chu Chun-teng. Gliding between genres and styles, the film is as slippery as its namesake and may not satisfy those who prefer to understand what they see onscreen. Regardless of how one rates its success as a work of narrative storytelling, Eel certainly announces the arrival of an exciting new voice.
The film’s strangeness and beauty are apparent from the get-go. In the opening sequence, a woman dressed in fiery red walks wordlessly into a river, her gradual disappearance unnoticed by the city on the opposite shore. Then it’s suddenly night and a naked young man digs around a swamp trying to catch an eel just out of his reach. In the background, some type of mythical folk ritual accompanied by an insistent, ominous soundtrack seems to be in progress. Before we can make sense of what is happening, it’s day again and we see that the young man, Liang (Devin Pan), works at a waste-disposal plant. After work he visits his sick grandmother, fixes the leaky rooftop of the shack he lives in, and talks to pigeons. Liang’s lonesome world begins to change when he finds the woman in the river (Misi Ke), with whom he starts an increasingly passionate affair.
Any attempt to summarize Eel would be futile. Fairly quickly does it become clear that plot is not a main concern for Chu. Individual events don’t add up to provide answers. They serve, rather, to build a very particular world in which the two protagonists reside and reveal what’s most striking about Chu’s filmmaking––its heady blend of realism and mythical fantasy. There’s an aspect to his depiction of Liang that feels hyper-realistic. He works a thankless blue-collar job, cannot afford any treats for himself or his family, has little chance of leaving this life behind for something better. Like millions of others, he’s trapped at the bottom of the social ladder.
Except there are no millions others in this film. If anything, Liang appears to exist in a vacuum eerily detached from reality. Minus for his one buddy at work, the grandma he visited once, and the lady in the water, we hardly see any other human in this film: the giant garbage plant is always empty, only a pig walks the street Liang commutes on, and the city across the river looks back all day in silence. When the buddy asks Liang, as they take their boat out for a ride, what lies beyond the mouth of the river, he literally cannot come up with an answer. This absolute isolation feels surreal, evoking an existential unease.
The female character is an earthbound and supernatural creation at once. Her romance with Liang is the most solid part of the film and gives it the strength to finally break free. Their sex scenes meticulously showcase the musculature of their mortal bodies and burst with carnal desire. Yet, from her ethereal appearance to her exit at the end of the film, everything seems to suggest she’s not of this world. Where did she come from and what are her intentions? Is she the eel itself? The film doesn’t say but beguiles with a lingering sense of mystery.
Above all, Eel stands out for the intensity of its visual language. Aided by cinematographer Nguyễn Vinh Phúc (who shot the gorgeous Taste, an Encounters selection at the 2021 Berlinale), Chu composes shots that are strikingly beautiful and rich with meaning. At times recalling Tsai Ming-liang or a grimier, hornier Bi Gan, his images are all about daring camera angles, sensual colors, and deep contrasts. Even if one can’t quite grasp the story being told, there’s that rare, magical quality to the images that thoroughly commands your attention.
There are parts in the film that verge on stylistic overkill, where Chu tries packing one too many detail into a frame, and other parts where the experience would have benefitted from more narrative clarity or coherence. Eel still impresses with its interplay of realist drama and myth. Employing an aesthetic at once earthen and hypnotic, it opens up an imaginative realm in the unlikeliest, most hopeless place. Leaving the film, one has the impression of waking up from a trippy dream in which a person may have turned into a fish or vice-versa. It carries the kind of unique signature that makes a debut promising.
Eel premiered at the 2025 Berlinale.