MISS WORLD
2017 · 21m · Taiwan
Directed by Georgia Fu
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
A party-girl daughter home from abroad tries to say goodbye to her uncommunicative father on the day before he starts a five-year prison sentence.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The premise sounds like a Hallmark tearjerker—daughter, father, prison, redemption—but Fu seems uninterested in wringing catharsis from it, which is exactly the kind of refusal that makes it worth watching.
A restrained chamber piece that positions itself in the lineage of intimate family portraiture; the formal discipline required to keep two people in a room from becoming static reveals considerable craft awareness.
The decision to let silence and physical distance do the emotional work rather than force a reconciliation scene is what separates this from a dozen other 'last conversation' shorts—Fu trusts the viewer to feel what isn't said.
Reviews
Like its protagonist, Miss World is imperfect, but it's for this very reason that it's such a pleasure to watch. The film swiftly combines a nostalgic visual design & atmosphere with the tragicomic sense of story depicting its lost characters.