Palimpsest: What's in a Name? Maybe the Difference Between Affluence and Poverty
By Alice Shih
Rating: A
The very personal Toronto International Film Festival release Palimpsest: The Story of a Name is a portrait of a name-based glass ceiling that’s at least as old as Hollywood
In 1941, the Academy Awards recognized documentary film production for the first time, and a special Oscar went to Rey Scott for his extraordinary Kukan, a celluloid recording of China under siege by storms of Japanese bombs.
However, research by another documentary filmmaker, Robin Lung, exposed the fact that the uncredited producer was Ling-Ai Li, an American-born Chinese woman. Why was Li not rightfully credited?
Could a name signify a systemic racial and sexual discrimination issue in the film industry in 1941?
Fast forward to Hong Kong in the late 1940’s. The mysterious father of Mary Stephen (French director Éric Rohmer’s long-time editor), who looked completely Asian, had adopted “Stephen” as his last name.
Mary Stephen was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to Montreal at a young age. Since childhood, she has been asked numerous times about her mismatched last name. Growing up, she felt she was being treated as a mysterious foreigner, both in Hong Kong and in Montreal.
She had asked her parents about her ancestry repeatedly but was never answered clearly. Full of doubts, she dug up her parents’ belongings after their passing, only to see different conflicting versions. She decided to dig deeper by making Palimpsest: The Story of a Name. (Which has its final screening at the Toronto International Film Festival today).
By way of metaphor, and the word palimpsest: Papers were scant in Medieval times. When some writings were no longer valid, the words would be washed off and new text would be re-written on the same page, creating palimpsests. However, the original writings could never come off completely so it might still be faintly visible, but hardly decipherable.
Stephen found her ancestral documentations mirroring these palimpsests, revealing illusory explanations and not the truth, as her parents creatively covered all tracks of their past for reasons unknown to anyone.
The most concrete thing Stephen’s father left behind was the countless hours of home movies of his times: the people, the streets and landscape of old Hong Kong from 1949 to the early 1970s. Colonialism was evident everywhere, from architecture to the fashion. People in high society would wear their well-tailored western suits, dresses and leather shoes; when the under-privileged would clad in simple Chinese wide-style shirts, pants and fabric loafers.
These candid images were not shot for propaganda purposes or to sugar-coat war measures, they simply documented what the family had experienced, which is unquestionably honest.
Being a seasoned editor, Stephen masterly weaves these traces of fact using her father’s visuals and her mother’s writings to propel the intriguing narrative forward, sharing with her curious viewers her journey of self-discovery while uncovering deceptions.
The footage showcased an affluent Chinese-looking Stephen family living amidst other less fortunate Chinese families during wartime. Could it be the Western surname that had given them more privilege in colonial British Hong Kong? “What’s in a name?” Juliet questioned in Romeo and Juliet. Does a name really define the essence of a thing, or a person? Could it be manipulated as a tool to fend off worldwide tangible discriminations in the 1940s?
And what about now?
Palimpsest: The Story of a Name. Directed by Mary Stephen. Final TIFF screening: Fri., Sept. 12, 12:25 p.m Scotiabank Theatre.