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Many coming-of-age tales take on the archetype of the road movie, and Whispers in May does, too. But as a story about a teen thrust into the daunting world of adulthood and as a winding odyssey, Dongnan Chen’s hybrid documentary is unique and special. This “improvised fiction,” as Chen calls the form, follows 14-year-old Qihuo, who lives in China’s remote Liangshan Mountains. When she gets her first period, she and her two best friends, Atnyop and Itgop, embark on a trek by foot, over the mountains and through the dense forest, to the city of Butuo to purchase a garment for the traditional Yi “Changing Skirt” ceremony. Over the course of an arduous hike, we watch the girls’ youthful optimism slowly fade, and the film’s patient observational style reveals their hidden emotions through a symphony of micro-expressions. Taking in the scope and isolation of the environment, balanced with the intimacy and uncertainty of Qihuo’s internal journey, Chen gives this story a melancholic fairy tale sensibility, set in this humid liminal place where modernity and superstition coexist. ~OO