The feature-length documentary Broca’s Area is the fourth film by director Su Mingyan, continuing his exploration of the themes of “memory and existence.” This time, the story focuses on a group of young employees in their early twenties who, while intimately interacting with silicone love dolls as part of their daily work, must also navigate personal challenges such as unplanned parenthood and paternity disputes.
A Deep Dive into Memory and Existence
For eight months, Su Mingyan documented life inside a silicone love doll hotel, capturing the contradiction between memory and existence. Through a series of close-up shots that constantly juxtapose human bodies with love dolls, the film draws a parallel between the lifelike yet silent dolls and the young employees who share a similarly unexpressed burden of desires and secrets. With no clear outlet for their frustrations, the characters’ struggles prompt a reflection on the fundamental nature of human existence. The film has been nominated for competition at the Taiwan Documentary Film Festival.
On a rainy night, amid the glow of smoldering cigarette butts and mist-filled rooms, the camera abruptly cuts to a face—flawless, without blemishes or wrinkles. A pair of deep brown, symmetrically positioned eyes gaze out from beneath thick lashes. The expression seems hesitant, as if on the verge of speaking, yet no words emerge. This is because the face, the entire body, is made of silicone—lifeless, yet an ideal vessel for secrets.
Through intimate close-ups, Broca’s Area begins to unravel the story of these silicone love dolls.
An 85-Minute Journey into a Silent World
At 85 minutes in length, Broca’s Area marks Su Mingyan’s first feature-length film and is a contender in the Taiwan Documentary Film Festival. The film provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at a silicone love doll hotel, capturing the day-to-day operations over an eight-month period. It follows dolls such as “Qingqing,” “Tutu,” and “Xuejie” as they undergo makeup application, hairstyle changes, and wardrobe selections—transforming into the idealized partners of customers. At the same time, the film delves into the lives of the twenty-something staff members who manage the hotel, illustrating how they confront their own personal dilemmas amidst the physical pleasures they facilitate.
A Blurred Line Between Humans and Love Dolls
Maintaining the hotel requires meticulous daily labor. The young employees, clad in matching black uniforms emblazoned with smiling love doll faces, shuttle between rooms, carefully handling the 30-kilogram love dolls. After use, the love dolls are decapitated, their bodies suspended for cleaning—a process eerily reminiscent of a slaughterhouse. Heads are reattached based on each doll’s persona, makeup is reapplied, and a name is given, preparing them to be “new” companions for the next day’s clients.
The routine is repeated countless times: from bed-making to post-encounter cleaning, the monotonous labor sustains the weight of human desire. The employees eat, sleep, and work within the hotel, their lives intertwined with the love dolls. Yet, aside from scheduling reservations and discussing doll appearances, human interactions are scarce.
Throughout the film, recurring shots depict headless female love dolls hanging in the cleaning room, young staff members engulfed in cigarette smoke, and silent male clients. The vast hotel space is filled with unspoken words—only the love dolls remain as the most intimate companions.
A Reflection on Speechlessness and Human Connection
Su Mingyan interprets the prevailing silence in the film as a form of “aphasia”—a condition that inspired the film’s title. In medical literature, the Broca’s area of the brain controls speech production. When damaged, it results in Broca’s aphasia, where individuals struggle to form grammatically coherent sentences, speaking in fragmented, telegraphic phrases.
“Silicone love dolls reflect the human condition: speechlessness,” Su explains. “People hesitate to speak or don’t know how to express themselves. The young employees in the hotel, much like the dolls, are not good at communication. They keep everything bottled up inside.”
Scenes of hushed conversations underscore this theme:
- “Are you seeing someone?”
- “Shh.”
A bespectacled employee is quietly dating a hostess.
- “Are you getting a paternity test?”
- “Don’t ask me.”
Another employee, recently a young father, faces an uncertain parental situation.
Despite their daily interactions with love dolls, the employees handle them with mechanical efficiency—undressing them, suspending their headless bodies, and using high-powered hoses to wash away the remnants of customer desires.
The film meticulously captures these moments, highlighting the irony of a hotel marketed as a “shared girlfriend” experience. In reality, the concept of sharing seems absent. Everyone conceals their problems, leaving the love dolls—the only silent witnesses—to carry the most secrets.
Love Dolls as Silent Confidants
When words fail, do unspoken thoughts accumulate into a growing collection of secrets?
Beyond documenting hotel operations, Broca’s Area explores the theme of secrecy. Su describes the hotel’s atmosphere as both ambiguous and cautious—employees rarely speak, customers come and go in silence, and within the rooms, the only sounds are those of men whispering their secrets to the unmoving love dolls. The act of expressing emotions to a lifeless silicone figure remains a social taboo. Every physical movement becomes another brick in a wall of secrecy, a space where desire is both concealed and released.
To better understand the connection between people and love dolls, a journalist interviewed “Jie Ke Dolls,” a supplier for the hotel. Jie Ke revealed that in the past 12 years, over 50,000 love dolls have been sold in Taiwan. Among the stories he recalled, one stood out—a wedding.
An 80-year-old man hosted a private ceremony in his mansion, surrounded by family, his wife, and a priest, as he “married” his first silicone love doll. The doll, assuming the dual role of friend and wife, would accompany him in his final years, while his human spouse resided on another floor of the house.
The salesperson involved in this transaction, pseudonymously named Nana, still receives updates from the man, who has since purchased three interchangeable heads for the doll, each with its own persona: a Japanese woman named “Murako,” a blonde Emirates flight attendant “Natalie,” and a Shanghai Broadway showgirl “Lihong.” Every day, he talks to them, shares his life, and confides his secrets.
The Intersection of Memory, Consciousness, and Identity
How does such intimacy between humans and love dolls develop? A doll repair specialist featured in the film, Zixun, shares his perspective:
“I believe love dolls serve as an emotional refuge for their owners. They engage in conversations, exchange thoughts, and in doing so, secrets are created. Sometimes, I even wish the dolls would come to life—like Doraemon.”
Over the past six years, Zixun has repaired over a thousand love dolls, each bearing unique imprints of their owners’ lives—some used for companionship after losing a spouse, others as outlets for emotional pain or physical desire. He himself owns a love doll that has accompanied him to sleep every night for six years, sharing an unspoken connection.
A Question for Society
If humans lose the ability to articulate memories, how do they differ from silicone love dolls?
Through Broca’s Area, Su Mingyan extends this question to society: If people cannot express themselves, do they truly exist? What distinguishes a human from a love doll? How does consciousness manifest?
The film’s inquiries stem from Su’s lifelong fascination with memory and existence. His experiences—witnessing mental illness in the military, exploring psychiatric institutions, and encountering trauma survivors—have shaped his artistic pursuit of these questions.
From dissociation to aphasia, existence to nothingness, Broca’s Area ultimately presents an open-ended question to Taiwan’s society:
If something cannot be spoken, does it truly exist?
