5th Singapore Short Cuts - Twogether by Victhric Thng


A man-made water feature that has water cascading down in neat regular rows, form the setting and also the visual fabric of this film. In a kind of naturalistic surrealism, 2 men are perched on top of the structure taking a dip in the water. We are not entirely where we are because it looks like something you would see in a shopping centre and yet the characters behave like they are in a public swimming pool, making the film exude a subtle kind of defiance. Perhaps, a challenge of natural order, congruous with the queerness of its theme and also the subsequent physical `stunt’ of the man.

Right from the moment we see the characters, one character `slides’ towards the other in a way as smooth as a moonwalk. The moment is familiar - like you can control what you say but cannot control how your body Reacts. And silly me, I actually believed it was really a part of the water feature. It turned out to be a post-production trick as revealed from the horse’s mouth.

Victhric revealed during the Q & A that Twogether was made as a defiant reaction to people who keep probing him about when he would make his first feature film. I happened to chance upon it on YouTube initially before Short Cuts. Linked to it is also another short centred around a visual of a crescent moon shot from a moving car. Something I remembered more vividly than Twogether.
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