IFFK 2024: Nelicia Low’s worlds of movies and fencing come together seamlessly in her debut film Pierce

While watching Pierce, the debut feature of former Singapore national fencer Nelicia Low, one would assume that the sport inspired the film, for fencing is at the very centre of the narrative which deals with brotherly affection and psychopathic tendencies. The trademark moves in the sport, which one character defines as chess played with swords, also parallels the behaviour of the characters in the film, screened in the world cinema section at the 29th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) on Saturday (December 14, 2024).

But, when The Hindu asked her about her journey from being a fencing champion to a filmmaker, she said that films have always been her calling, much before fencing happened.

“I actually did not start from fencing and go towards film. Film was my first love and I wanted to be a director since I was 7 years old. I only started fencing because in Singapore, it is mandatory for high school students to pick a society/club to join, I picked fencing because two of my favourite movies growing up had swordplay – Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. So actually it was my love for film that led me to fencing,” says Ms. Low in an email interview.

She retired after the 2010 Asian Games to concentrate on filmmaking completely, and was accepted into Columbia University’s MFA in film directing. While she was a student there, she made her first short film in Taiwan.

“There was this mass murder incident on the subway in Taipei a month before I arrived. A 21-year-old university student stabbed people on the subway train, killing 4. However, beyond the cruelty of his actions, I was even more shocked at the varying reactions within his own family, for his parents begged the government to execute him, while his younger brother blindly supported him and stood by his side. His younger brother’s reaction made me wonder about my relationship with my older brother, who is autistic, and formed the basis for the inspiration of Pierce. Making Pierce is my way of coming to terms with the fact that I will never know if my brother can ever return my love for him, but I cannot help but love him regardless,” she says.

In Pierce, fencer Zijie (Liu Hsiu-Fu) attempts to get close with his elder brother Zihan (Tsao Yu-Ning), who is returning from juvenile prison after serving a term for killing an opponent during a fencing match. But their mother is against this idea, not willing to believe that her elder son is capable of being reformed. Fencing becomes a tool for Zihan to get close to his little brother, but his ambiguous and closed demeanour leaves the audience as well as Ziljie guessing about his true nature and intentions.

Their tense exchanges and Zihan’s very presence fills one with a sense of foreboding. The changing family dynamics with the arrival of the mother’s boyfriend also plays out parallel to this. The dinner sequence where the brothers are introduced to his family, where all the elders are impressed by the boastful lies of Zihan, while only a young boy sees through him, is immaculately pulled off. Pierce becomes a psychological drama which leaves one intrigued till the final bloody moments, wherein lies an interesting twist.

“Fencing was not originally part of the script, however in the process of writing this autobiographical film, I had to stray away from my reality in order to get closer to the emotional truth, which is why the older brother in the film does not have autism. Therefore I started using fencing as a metaphor for the relationship between the brothers, where each brother is always trying to guess what the other was thinking. It also informed the visual and aural strategy of the film,” she says.