A jaded investigative reporter rediscovers a sense of purpose even as her industry flounders while exposing systematised abuse and neglect in privately run care homes in Lawrence Kan’s hard-hitting drama, In Broad Daylight (白日之下). The film’s title hints at its pervasive sense of despair, the problem isn’t so much that no one knew the state of affairs but that no one cared enough to do anything about it while the journalists too find themselves at the mercy of a hyper-capitalistic society.
A whistleblower close to the end of the film reveals that they’d been anonymously sending photos from the care home where they work because they wanted “to feel human again” and “treat others as humans” only until now no one had taken any notice. They weren’t really expecting that anyone ever would. Top investigative reporter Kay (Jennifer Yu Heung-Ying) is one of only a handful of reporters left on her paper which is threatening to shut down the investigative department altogether if they can’t bring in a big scoop. Kay’s boss is similarly conflicted, not wanting to crush the idealism of rookie recruit Jess in insisting that their work has value in telling the stories that should be told while privately reminding Kay that the care home scandal might not be “explosive” enough to earn them a reprieve from their boss.
For her own part, Kay is already jaded explaining to Jess that nothing really matters and nothing they write makes any difference when wrongdoers generally get off scot-free. Her desire to pursue the care home story is partly personal in that she’s dealing with a degree of guilt and grief over the death of her grandfather who took his own life in a privately run facility. To investigate one she’s been tipped off is particuarly bad, she poses as the granddaughter of a patient with dementia, Kin-tong, explaining that she’s not visited before because her family moved to Canada when she was a child, and thereafter making an offer to volunteer on seeing how bad things really are there witnessing not only a dead rat in Kin-tong’s room but physical abuse of the residents.
It would be easy enough to assume that the faults are “isolated incidents” as the regulatory body likes to describe them and mostly down to the presence of the head nurse, Mrs Fong, who is clearly not someone who should be working in a care facillity, but the truth is that these are systemic problems largely born of governmental indifference. A government source tells her that the waiting list for a publicly funded homes stands at 15 years leaving many families little choice but to take what they can afford in the private sector. They are often unable to take care of elderly relatives themselves because they cannot take time off work to do so, or are simply not equipped to respond to their loved ones’ needs.
But neither are the care homes. The manager, Chief Cheung who is blind himself, in part justifies the existence of his facility on the grounds that it is difficiult for people with disabilities to find homes to take them, painting the community as a happy family home doing its best rather than a callous attempt to exploit the vulnerable run by a dodgy businessman who admits that even if they’re exposed they’ll just change their name and start again somewhere else. Kay asks Kin-tong why he stays but he tells her that they’re all the same anyway. Even when she uncovers evidence of sexual abuse of a resident with learning difficulties she discovers that it’s almost impossible to prosecute because no one wants to put a vulnerable person on the stand opposite their abuser which allows them the confidence to think they can do whatever they want because they’ll never face dismissal let alone criminal proceedings.
Kay begins to wonder what the point is if, as people are fond of telling her, no one really cares, but also is also forced to reflect on the moral difficulties of the situation. If the home is closed down, it will leave many of the residents with nowhere else to go. Mostly likely they will end up on the streets or in another equally bad private care home while she at least might earn herself a temporary reprieve in achieving the kind of scoop her money-minded editor was looking for. Her boss insists that she can’t change the world, the system won’t change overnight even if people are temporarily outraged. The truth is that these are people who’ve been abandoned by their society and often by their families especially with so many younger people emigrating leaving relatives behind with no one to watch over them. Though somewhat jaded, Kay comes to empathise with the people she meets at the care home and rediscovers a sense of purpose in her work that reminds her it’s worth the fight even if in the end nothing really changes. In many ways bleak, Kan’s empathetic drama is otherwise undespairing in its gentle advocation for mutual compassion and world in which we can truly take care of each other.
In Broad Daylight screened as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival. It will also be screening in Chicago on Sept. 16 as part of the 17th season of Asian Pop-Up Cinema.
Original trailer (English subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 