Still: Lyrical Vengeance - wendelien van oldenborgh

Core to wendelien van oldenborgh’s debut feature Lyrical Vengeance**, which world premieres in IDFA’s Envision Competition, are the lives of three female writers from Indonesia, Japan and the Netherlands whose works, written during the turbulent 1930s and 40s, resisted the prevailing patriarchal and nationalist politics of the time. 

The three writers – Indonesian Suwarsih Djojopuspito, Indo-Dutch Beb Vuyk and Japanese Fumiko Hayashi – in varying degrees aimed their invective at oppressive regimes, and each was committed to the recognition of women’s labour, sex work, alternative family structures and anti-fascism.

Given equal weight within the film are the equally curious and politicised individuals within three contemporary club-based collective movements, namely WAIFU (Japan), Klup Menepi (Indonesia) and KLAUW (Rotterdam), all of whom are waging a similar battle, and who cite their 20th Century forebears as cultural and societal exemplars.

“In general, queer movements are transnationally connected, and work in solidarity with each other, and organize raves and club nights,” says van oldenborgh of the settings where we meet her contemporary cast of characters, who are artists, researchers and activists, and who are partly connected to these movements.

“Moving between intimate and collective spaces, Lyrical Vengeance shows the emotional work of solidarity, and the importance of spaces where freedom can be celebrated, from the archive to the dancefloor,” she adds in her notes.

The dance floor as a key location setting for the action is important, historically the “space where queer life could be expressed, as well as black life,” confirms van oldenborgh. “Queer nightclubs have always been political spaces.”

In and around the afore-mentioned raves in Tokyo, Yogyakarta and Rotterdam, these modern-day activists recite from the authors’ texts, muse on the meaning of their words, and consider the writers’ legacy, before indulging in elaborate role-play whereby the lives and motivations of each writer is interpreted, whether in drag or in make-up, by a selection of colourful and dynamic performers.

Not that everything we see in the film is so harmonious. Fumiko Hayashi was one of the most popular female writers in the 1930s, but she was sent to Indonesia as part of a ‘Pen Brigade’ campaign of diplomacy during the Japanese occupation. In the film she is referred to as the “handmaiden of power.”

“She is later accused of not apologising for her role during the fascist regime,” van oldenborgh points out, which other Japanese individuals in occupied Indonesia felt compelled to do. “But she wrote the story of Borneo Diamond that we read in the film, in which she tries to be more critical of the situation. She doesn't manage this totally, she's still quite a Japanese nationalist. But at the same time, she doesn't glorify the situation.”

The latter-day drag artist Andromeda is one of the protagonists who depict Hayashi, and at one point is annoyed by the cold shoulder they are given by another protagonist playing Indonesian Suwarsih, when they are not invited to participate in a discussion (albeit one conducted on a dance floor). While the scene is in part-choreographed, director van oldenborgh maintains that it was exactly this kind of spontaneity among her contemporary characters that she was encouraging. 

“I don't need to control. That's exactly my point - I tried to lose the control,” she says.

“They can really do and say what they want. But, of course, we are all in it together, and there is a lot of talk and a lot of conversation and understanding beforehand. But I want to avoid the impression that it is an execution of my script, it's more like a togetherness.”

“It's multi-vocal, it has many voices, speaking together, and producing something together,” van oldenborgh explains both the experience of, and rationale behind, the film. “We're not speaking together just to be in continuous disagreement. We're producing something together without being in harmony. For me, polyphony is not just a musical principle, it’s a political attitude.”  

Find out more about IDFA here.

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*Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund
**Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund and Production Incentive