Sook-Yin Lee and Year of the Carnivore

Sook-Yin Lee is known to Canadian audiences as a broadcaster, musician and filmmaker. Year of the Carnivore marked her first feature as writer and director, and it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Its central question, what it takes to become a more confident lover, also shaped the interviews she gave about it.

A feature paired a plot summary with comments by the director on intimacy. This article retells both in general terms.

The premise

The story follows a store detective at a supermarket who is hopelessly in love with a friend. After a disappointing first encounter, he says he does not want a relationship and suggests she needs more experience. She treats that remark as an assignment and sets out to gain it.

Her education unfolds through a series of comic escapades in a neighbour's bedroom, at a public swimming pool and behind the grocery store. Both lead characters carry unresolved questions about relationships, and each makes a separate emotional journey.

The director's outlook on skill

Lee has said she does not think of herself as a sex expert. She described sex as endlessly paradoxical and curious, and she said she does not know what makes somebody a good lover. In her view, love and satisfying sex tend to appear when a person can be vulnerable. She called the constant drive to be better, at work, in status, in friendships or in bed, something of an illusion.

Her central point was that moving toward being a good partner starts with knowing what makes oneself happy. That idea echoes a common theme in sex education writing: self-knowledge often comes before skill with another person.

Pleasing others and knowing oneself

Lee also observed that people often spend their energy pleasing others and meeting their wishes, when learning about their own preferences could serve them better. The remark fits the film's comic treatment of a character who tries to acquire a skill before she understands her own wants.

A career in Canadian media

Lee has been a visible figure in Canadian media. She hosted a weekly CBC radio program, Definitely Not the Opera, worked as a host at MuchMusic, has made music over many years and has directed short films. She also took a part in the feature film Shortbus, directed by John Cameron Mitchell.

The comic tone of Year of the Carnivore allows a frank subject, learning about sex, to be handled through awkwardness and humour rather than instruction.