Wang Zhenxi in 'Mistress Dispeller' Oscilloscope Laboratories Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment For aggrieved wives of cheating husbands, a rising new professional service in China offers an innovative solution. Unlike the confrontational drudgery of couples therapy - and aiming to avoid the confrontational finality of divorce - this approach relies on subterfuge. Women of means can hire a "mistress dispeller" to infiltrate their partner's affair, befriend the "other woman" without revealing their connection to the wife, and convince her to end the affair. This kind of marital embedding involves a whole lotta acting, as Elizabeth Lo's compelling documentary reveals, but also uncovers a whole world of loneliness, heartache and occasional wisdom. Related Stories Movies How's Martin Scorsese as a Documentary Subject? Movies DOC NYC Announces Full Lineup for Features and Shorts, Including '2000 Meters to Andriivka' and 'My Mom Jayne' As she did with Stray, her exquisite canine-centric documentary, Lo set quite a challenge for herself with Mistress Dispeller. She aimed to capture one of these quadrangular dramas - the central triangle plus the role-playing hired gun - as its layers of deception and truth unfolded. According to the film's production notes, where answers to some of the burning onscreen mysteries are revealed, Lo was prepared to take a more general approach to the subject if she couldn't find participants who allowed her to get specific. Astoundingly, a trio of people chose to stick with the project through its several shifts in the baseline premise, as they understood it. The result is a sharp-eyed, open-ended inquiry into marriage and romance. Mistress Dispeller The Bottom Line Provocative and quietly electric. Release date: Wednesday, Oct. 22 (New York); Friday, Oct. 24 (Los Angeles)Director: Elizabeth LoScreenwriters: Elizabeth Lo, Charlotte Munch Bengtsen 1 hour 35 minutes Lo began her inquiry with mistress dispeller Wang Zhenxi, who brings a fascinating mix of insight, compassion and role-play to her work. Mrs. Li, who shares a high-rise apartment with her husband and teenage daughter in Luoyang, in central China, hires Wang after she saw a woman's text on her husband's phone and instantly "knew everything." Posing as a friend of Mrs. Li's, Teacher Wang, as her clients call her, meets Mr. Li, who's soon confiding in her. She convinces him to introduce her as his cousin to the woman he's recently become involved with, 30-something Fei Fei, a hardworking entrepreneur from neighboring Zhengzhou. The intertwining levels of performance, not only by Teacher Wang, but by the husband and wife too, become dizzying, if not quite labyrinthine. Offscreen, the Lis, who play badminton together and have been known to walk down the street holding hands, initially agreed to participate in a documentary about modern love. Onscreen, they're the picture of marital disaffection, especially when he makes the age-old fatal error of not noticing her new haircut. It's easy to dismiss him as another selfish middle-aged man whose "dilemma," he tells Wang, is that he doesn't want to divorce his wife or give up his girlfriend. But there's a humble, pained sincerity in his description of being with Fei Fei as "like being in the sun," compared with the day-to-day practicalities of life with his wife. Handling DP duties as well as directing, Lo prefers long takes, her stationary camera at times permitting her to be outside the room when difficult conversations are taking place. Under the aegis of the modern-love project, she's able to ride along in Mr. Li's car and capture front-seat discussions that are as revealing as they are halting and strained. Sometimes, tragicomically, they're punctuated by GPS instructions. With superb work by editor Charlotte Munch Bengtsen (All That Breathes), Lo interweaves images of nature and the bustling city that lend context to the central drama without putting too fine a point on it. She offers glimpses of other Chinese "love industries," capturing the artifice of a wedding photo session and a couple of matchmakers at work in their corporate office, discussing measurable attributes. It's not clear if Wang, who works out of a counseling center, is a licensed psychotherapist, but she's not quite lying when she poses as someone who "works in education." With her friendly, low-key approach, she's gifted at helping people to shift perspectives and dispel emotional fog, a confessor who disguises therapy as conversation between friends. Some might call her a master manipulator. Explaining her methods to a colleague, she says that she's "just a vessel" in her clients' lives. She's piercingly perceptive regarding the clashing, self-defeating desires of many women who become involved with married men, although she preempti