Sweet Dumplings (2016)

Directed by: Lai Kin Chang | 13 minutes | short film, drama | Actors: Lisa Man, Tien-Sing Wang

While preparing the traditional Chinese dish, dumplings, a couple is lost in their own thoughts. In the kitchen of their restaurant they work together, they think of the same thing independently of each other, yet the two cannot be separated anymore, it seems.

The man makes the filling, the woman takes care of the dough and fills the carefully made dough flaps. Slight reproaches are sometimes heard back and forth: “why don’t you buy a mixer? That’s much easier, isn’t it?” The man seems more obliging, compliments his wife on the spring onions she has bought freshly. ‘Sweet Dumplings’ by Flemish director Lai Kin Chang, who is making his directorial debut, is a short film in which themes such as loss, mourning and coping are presented in an intimate manner. Lai Kin Chang has been working in the film industry since the 1990s, as an assistant animator she made the title sequence of ‘Les triplettes de Belleville’ (2003) and collaborated on ‘The Little Polar Bear’.

What stands out most about ‘Sweet Dumplings’ is the visual aspect. The everyday actions, repetitive and in themselves not startling, are portrayed so beautifully by continuously changing frames that you remain mesmerized. As the film progresses, it becomes clear what caused the tense atmosphere, although as a viewer you secretly keep hoping for a sunnier outcome. Beautiful, sad.