‘Mistress Dispellers’ Hired to End Extramarital Affairs

VENICE, Italy—Have you ever discovered the person you trust most in the world is being unfaithful? There are countless ways of reacting to such a discovery. Confronting the person directly is an obvious choice, though it’s challenging and can end very badly. Some seek revenge, others become violent, and many fall into desperation. But what if there were someone you could pay to handle this for you, someone capable of ending the affair before it destroys your life?

Elizabeth Lo’s intriguing documentary Mistress Dispeller , which recently premiered at the Venice Film Festival, delves deep into this concept. In China, when there’s a suspicion of infidelity, a person can hire a mistress dispeller. The dispeller’s job involves a meticulous process of integrating themselves into the couple’s life and subsequently terminating the affair.

Mistress Dispeller follows the story of an older woman who has been married for decades. On the surface, they seem to have everything: a spacious apartment with an amazing view, a successful adult son, and financial stability. However, their relationship hits a rough patch, and when the woman finds a suspicious text on her husband’s phone, she learns of his infidelity. She then hires the mistress dispeller, who meticulously plots every interaction, manipulating each scenario to extract information from the husband, wife, and mistress to mend the broken relationship.

The dispeller operates on set beliefs about why affairs happen. She thinks mistresses feel undeserving of true love, clinging to those already in relationships who can’t fulfill their desires. This theory faces contradiction when the documentary introduces the mistress in question, who appears confident and self-assured, not the picture of desperation the dispeller paints.

The film is remarkably candid. The opening titles disclose that all participants consented at both the start and the end of the filming process, understanding the role of the mistress dispeller fully.

These consent disclosures seem essential because Mistress Dispeller is shockingly intimate, capturing such personal moments that viewers are left in awe. The ethical bounds of displaying such vulnerability are ambiguous—are we meant to witness real people at their most exposed? However, Lo’s camera maintains respect, using static medium shots over intrusive close-ups.

The film flows almost like a narrative feature. There’s no narration or talking heads. The immersive experience at times feels as if a twist will reveal the subjects to be actors, but that never happens. Context about the history or prevalence of mistress dispellers is scant. We don’t learn how widespread this practice is or how long it has existed. It’s a deliberate choice as Lo focuses intently on the personal crisis of one family rather than the broader context of the service.

Clues to the necessity of mistress dispellers emerge in the deeply intimate conversations featured in Mistress Dispeller. The wife, having hired the dispeller, contemplates with her cousin if she’s a coward for not confronting her husband herself. Yet, why subject yourself to a heart-wrenching conversation if someone else can handle it for you? Lo’s film incisively examines our modes of communication and how technology has facilitated secrecy. As technology encourages self-examination, will the outsourcing of personal decisions become the norm?

The raw honesty captured in Mistress Dispeller is, quite frankly, astonishing. It’s akin to eavesdropping on private therapy sessions. When the husband confesses to the dispeller his simultaneous love for both his wife and his mistress, the scene is riveting, emotions laid bare. One particularly intense scene sees the dispeller breaking the fourth wall, addressing the camera crew about the precedent set by filming such raw interactions.

Ultimately, Mistress Dispeller takes viewers on an engrossing journey through a fraught relationship. A lingering question remains after the credits roll: Is the couple truly better off, or are they destined to repeat the cycle that led to this turmoil? That’s a conclusion left for the audience to ponder.

Source: The Daily Beast