Inspired by the fantastical grotesquerie of Bosch, “When the Scale Tips” is a contemporary fable critiquing patriarchy. Three travelers—a Knight, a Merchant, and a Priest—find a legendary pink scale in a desert. They enter its tripartite realm: In a black-and-white circus, the Knight crowns himself king through violence, only to be assassinated by the Merchant. In a golden casino, the Merchant wins alchemy by wagering his kin, but dies vomiting gold from insatiable greed. Finally, the Priest, before a Wheel of Truth, abandons his faith for a supreme scepter, is consumed by it, his eyes blinded by illusion. The film deconstructs patriarchy through a “triple-scale” structure—physical, psychological, cosmic—revealing power as a quantifiable system of violence (Knight’s sword), capital (Merchant’s chip), and knowledge monopoly (Priest’s scepter). A visual chain—monochrome, golden plague, pink void—charts the “decay curve of the power spectrum.” Each seeker becomes a sacrifice to their own desire. The tale concludes with an empty scepter hovering over the desert, signaling the ironic redemption of a patriarchal civilization reset to zero.
by Chenyi Jiang and Yi wei (China)
Cal Film Festival 