Loading ...Splendid Float is Zero Chou’s first film. It depicts the life of a group of Taiwanese tranvestites in a travelling cabaret show. Roy (James Chen) dances and sings in drag (as “Rose”) in the show at night, while spending his day as a Taoist priest conducting funeral rites.
Zero Chou’s debut feature-length film, “Splendid Float,” won the best Taiwan film prize at the Golden Horse Awards in 2004. The film represents the gay dilemma in Taiwan via the absurd, and explores the possibility of reconciling the traditional and queer communities.
At one of the shows, Rose meets Ah Yang (here translated as Sunny), and the two fall in love almost immediately. However, the Rose and Sunny relationship seems to arise spontaneously, and while there are clear signs of affection, we’re left to fill in what exactly the couple sees in each other so much so that they talk about living together.
They make love with that certain urgency that in films tends to portend something tragic. And indeed, Sunny dies in a freak drowning accident, and the rest of the film is about Rose’s coming to terms with the death. When Rose’s ex-male friend Sunny drowns, he is asked by the family to perform the Taoist funeral rites to call the soul home.
In an ironic turn of events, Sunny had left a cryptic note just before he left, and the standard questions that might gnaw at any young person whose lover died mysteriously are magnified by the situation – did he kill himself to leave her? Was she spurned? Was she rejected?
Ultimately, as in with most attempts to communicate with the dead, Splendid Float remains resolutely ambiguous on these questions.
Chou does not explain the cause for Sunny’s death, although there may be a clue when Roy and Sunny first get together. When asking if Sunny thinks Roy and his friends strange, Sunny response that he thinks they are liberated. Indirectly through Sunny and more directly with Roy, Chou examines the dichotomy of society’s expectations against personal identity.
In the end, the other drag queens provide a solid support network for Rose, with a closeness that shows the true nature of their friendship, but there’s no denying the impact of the loss of a great love at so tender an age.
Starring: Chan Yu Ming, Chung Yi Hing, Wang Xue Ren, Wang Ming Zhang, Ma Xu Hang, Lai Yu Qi
Director: Chou Zero
