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Named after a neurological disorder that impairs speech, Su Ming-yen’s documentary feature debut is preoccupied with the loss of human intimacy. Broca’s Aphasia follows a group of twentysomething entrepreneurs who run a sex-doll-for-hire service out of a drab hotel in Taiwan. Here, customers can rent a room and spend time with a doll of their choosing. With adult videos looping in the background on big-screen TVs, the setup feels like an erotic simulacrum.
In terms of customer relations, the service is not that much different from, say, a car rental company. Before each session, the staff politely advise the client on a doll’s no-go areas, their matter-of-fact tone bringing to mind the language of a safety manual. Startlingly lifelike in their suppleness, the dolls require rigorous daily maintenance from head to toe. One of the most eerie shots in the film lingers on a row of headless dolls hooked to a metal rack, like fresh meat at an abattoir.
Considering the documentary is dominated by a commodified, artificial version of the female form, it is jarring whenever a real woman appears in this largely male-dominated zone. In one scene, a male staff member is at the bedside of his girlfriend, who has just given birth – the woman’s animated joy a stark contrast to the dolls’ frozen faces.
And amid the hotel’s mundane routines, a disembodied voice of a woman occasionally floats in and out. Her poetic words, which speak of nightmares and loneliness, seem to be emanating from the dolls themselves. But the anthropomorphic impulse behind such detail is unnecessary, and it is egregious to link these dolls to the experiences of real-life sex workers. In a film steeped in everyday specificity, this narrative flourish sticks out as an unfortunate misstep.