October 16, 2024

In Wayne Wang’s 1982 independent classic Chan is Missing, two characters are searching for the titular Chan, who acts throughout the film as a sort of cypher, representing various ideas about Chinese Americans (and Asian Americans more broadly). Chan never appears in the flesh–the aforementioned pair, Jo and Steve (Wood Moy and Marc Hayashi, respectively), spend the narrative meeting various contacts who all have different impressions of him. One of these, a Filipino man played by non-actor Presco Tabios in his only film role, gives a monologue in which he draws some metaphysical conclusions from Chan’s evasiveness. He concludes by referencing another friend’s tendency to gaze into puddles, and suggests that the amateur detectives might find Chan himself in such a place. The subtext is evident–Chan is a reflection of the observer, and in his absence, both the audience and the characters in the film project their own assumptions and ideas onto him. In the years since its release, Chan is Missing has gained a reputation as an important film, in its context as a micro-budget indie darling, an immigrant story, and even a noir film. But arguably it is discussed most often as a landmark film of Asian American cinema, being referred to as the first Asian American theatrical feature ever made in the United States. Obviously, all “firsts” are notable in their own way, but Chan is Missing is special even beyond this. With its poignantly absent central figure and its metafictional and philosophical dialogue, it uses its story to raise questions about identity, nationality, belonging, and most importantly of all, the very concept of representation. It is nice, perhaps even necessary, to be reassured that we are not alone. We know already, before any image appears on a screen, that there are others like us, who look like us or talk like us, who eat the same foods and listen to the same music and know the same old stories we heard as kids, passed down from generation to generation. New stories retell and contain the old ones. We are struck by recognition, and our hearts race with excitement or settle into a nostalgic calm. We are held tightly by our communion with familiar strangers, through sound and image. We are seen. Here in the United States, outside academic circles, talk of representation in media is largely confined to superficial assessments of the historically marginalized taking up positions of power or fantastical roles traditionally occupied by cisgender heterosexual white men. A Latinx president, an Indian American superhero. Even when taken more seriously, we are largely relegated to checked boxes–representation as inclusion or, more cynically, assimilation. What most glaringly appears to be missing here is representation as an avenue for empathy. In other words, rather than seeing ourselves occupying positions of power or disappearing into crowds of ordinary, upstanding citizens, can we not see ourselves in images of those worse off, without the same level of access? Can we see ourselves reflected in who we might be under other circumstances? The idea of storytelling as a means of building empathy is far older than cinema, likely older even than the written word; and that idea within cinema is older than more modern talks of the value of representation (specifically in the sense of demographic groups being reflected in the media and cultural output of the places in which they reside). Where these ideas have been synthesized is more complicated. We can take as an example the 1963 Iranian documentary The House Is Black. The only film directed by the poet Forugh Farrokhzad, it depicts, somewhat expressionistically but with minimal vocal explication, the abject yet undeniably valuable life within a leper colony. Farrokhzad and her crew do not dictate the terms under which the audience must view these people. They are undeniably victims of their disease, and their suffering is shown without varnish, but they are also shown to be eager students and to appreciate the wonders of creation, however simply those might manifest within their meager residence. They suffer, but they are not defined by their suffering. This depiction allows us to see the lepers as human, to identify aspects of ourselves in them which connect us across time and space. At the time of the film’s release, Iranians would have gained a better understanding of members of their own society who were otherwise invisible. In contrast, we might look at Ali Abbasi’s 2022 film Holy Spider. Abbasi shares with Farrokhzad an Iranian heritage, though he is of a younger generation and belongs to the diaspora, residing in Denmark when the film was conceived and produced. The film itself is essentially fiction, though based on the very real “Spider Killer” murders which took place in the Iranian city of Mashhad in the early 2000s. In Holy Spider, each of the killer’s victims, all of whom are (and were, in reality) female sex workers, is given a small amount of screen time to develop their characters before they are murdered. Though the actors portraying them do admirable work infusing them with humanity and making them relatable in different ways, they are not the primary entrypoint for identification in the film. That role is instead given to a woman journalist, Arezoo Rahimi. Unlike the killer’s targets, she is not portrayed as a victim. She is competent, confident, and, as far as both Iranian and Western societies are concerned, carries out a respectful profession. She is also a wholly fictional character. Why Abbasi would invent this character is not hard to determine–it is far easier and more comfortable for audiences to experience this story of violence and deprivation through the detached perspective of someone who can solve the problem, rather than succumb to it. More importantly, it is far harder to sell a movie in which the most fleshed out women are sex workers living in deep poverty. While Farrokhzad and Abbasi exist along the same continuum of national origin, and share some aspects of their identity in common, their