The recent La Salle Putnam School of Film Graduation Showcase
at The Projector while being an exhibition of new talents in the scene, turned
out to be also a barometer of current social attitudes. This year’s crop of
works demonstrated an apparent curiosity on the marginalized and the underdogs
of society and delightfully showed a rather mature hand in the treatment of
these matters, particularly in the documentaries. There is no surprise why some
of the filmmakers we have are also prominent civil society voices. They have a
great voice to lend!
Quinn
The documentary “Quinn’ by director Rave Puah was like a
blinding beacon of light in the showcase, forcing the audience to sit up and
give the subjects their full attention. ‘Quinn’ presents an often talked about
but seldom captured reality in our society – inevitable shotgun marriages. The
biggest of achievement of the film is being able to find a couple to agree to
be put under a microscope for the benefit of us viewers. ‘Quinn’ documents he
life of a young couple and their journey in raising their child, born out of
wedlock. The young definition of young
stretches our perception of this issue as the couple looks like they could fit
right into a set of school uniforms.
The documentary is largely a talking heads piece,
interspersed with a roving eye on their daily affairs. The devil of course is
in the details and the unspoken trust between the filmmaker and the family.
Singapore, as a society does not handle taboos well but this film and the
family featured have given an oddly inspiring face to this taboo. One
particular detail the film has picked up and captured is the strange
‘confrontational’ rapport the couple has between them, like the reverse of
being passive-aggressive. The interaction between them is thorny yet nuanced
with sweetness. Indeed, the film hits a note beyond just presenting a
situation, it is also a character study, which draws us closer to the
circumstances they are in. Not forgetting to mention, baby Quinn has a
deformity on the feet. For the ‘double whammy’ circumstances she is in, the
film thankfully does not over-sentimentalise. In fact, there are moments you
laugh along with the couple or giggle at the little teething parenting boo boos
they make. Given that it is potentially difficult to see this on national TV (as
I think the couple may have reservations), this is a gem of documentary that
needs to seen.
Blurred Lines
‘Blurred Lines’ by director Jeremiah R Oh continued along
the thread of societal anomalies with a peek into the life of a Chinese medium
and the questioning of religion. Again, the film chooses the path of relatively
great resistance by picking a rare occurrence like this family’s experience and
probably had to exercise a fair amount of persuasion to let the camera in on
their lives and especially their vulnerabilities. They are vulnerable because they
have recently sensed supernatural presence in the house and are seeking help.
The family is established as staunch Catholics at the beginning but out of
desperation, the mother seeks her brother’s help in dealing with the
supernatural forces. Her brother is a Taoist medium. Without too much
explaining, the sensationalistic plotline is clear and also the reality-TV
allure of the film. The footages are eye-opening as the film takes us into the
altar room of the medium and the journey to exorcism is conscientiously
documented.
Interestingly, the film opens up more questions than it
answers, which also distinguishes it from reality-TV. We are not sure the
rituals of the Taoist medium worked in the end but more importantly, our
understanding of the family’s strong Catholic faith is put into question. This
has a slightly disorientating effect on the audience, especially if they were
hoping for closure. What’s even more
confusing is the family sitting down to say Catholic prayers right after the
medium has finished his loop of exorcising around the house. Weird people
indeed! Or the lack of a closing note?
October Cherries
My first introduction to October Cherries, the local band,
is the song ‘Sunday Morning’ sung by Jacintha Abishanegaden. When the original recording
of this song played in the documentary film ‘October Cherries’ by Cristy Amanda
Rodrigues, it created a point of connection for me to the film. Documentaries
like these tend to divide, you either watch it because the fan boy in you is
looking for some musical gratification or the film presents a compelling story
on the journey to getting the show together, or it becomes a pain to watch. The
film documents the potential regrouping of the band through the eyes of Benny Siow,
the percussionist and through this journey revisits the days of their former
glory in the 60s and 70s. The younger members of the audience need to work
harder to see these men beyond kopi-drinking uncles sitting in a coffeeshop
trying to catch up with the times. With the interjection of old photographs, we
get a whiff of their glory beyond their current silver-haired selves. The length
of this film is perhaps its stumbling block for the reason that the film only
manages to document the members on the watershed point of getting together
again. On the other hand, of course, the meat, or rather the future of their
new collaboration, has yet to materialize and the film ends up mostly a tribute
film that ends with a question mark. The film does have a priceless moment though
– when the band visited the record store, chanced upon their own albums and took
a while to get used to seeing them!
Torrents
The narrative fiction shorts seemed to pale slightly in
comparison to the documentaries but were thoughtfully crafted nonetheless. The marginalised
continue to take centrestage in the films but each of the three narratives
displayed a different approach. ‘Torrents’ directed by Aloysius Koh harbours a
style echoing the ‘HDB Blues’ apparent in the early films of Eric Khoo, essentially
a mix of domestic struggle brewing within the confines of the narrow HDB flat
walls, despair and a dark visual palette. I would add Tsai Ming Liang to this
for the use of water leakage as a motif. ‘Torrents’ tell the story of a young
man, David, who is still living with his father and does not see the point of
hos father trying to salvage the ‘leaking’ situation in the current home. What
ensues is then an inter-generational struggle between sentimentalism and ‘younger
generation sensibilities’, as the son wants to sell the flat and live somewhere
new. While the film is largely predictable and its treatment and production
design seem ‘borrowed’, the father’s acting was moving and genuine and that anchored
the film mostly. A note on lighting though, the storeroom that contained the
old photo albums could be given an accent of lighting, to avoid the look of a
blackout. Proves the point that film can be stagier than you think!
Chen Jing
The film ‘Chen Jing’ by director Alvin Soh recreates the
world of prostitutes in Geylang, flooded in red light and filled with shadowy
corridors and corners. ‘Chen Jing’ is the name of the protagonist, a Malaysian
girl who finds her way into the trade to make money to pay off her debts. She
strikes up sisterhood with one of the older girls but her own intentions to
reach her pot of gold faster get in the way of the relationship. The premise is
familiar. Unfortunately, the treatment, too is familiar. It is probably the
linear and literal treatment of the story and characters that reminds you of TV
soap opera And the scripted Cantonese dialogue too. While
the film recreated the space of this trading den appropriately, it needed to
look deeper beneath the soap opera clichés of clandestine plotting and plans
destined for failure. A little more backstory perhaps.
Harbour
‘Harbour’ the final film of the evening, directed Cheng Chai
Hong, is a film that communicates a several levels, though this took a while.
The opening misleads you into either the realm of science fiction or horror
with the discovery of a mannequin or rubber life-sized human doll on the bed of
a lady who stays alone. Then when her fascination with the doll gets
compulsive, you wonder if you are watching a thriller. For sure, you could conclude
she was psychotic by now and you are just waiting for the moment when she
kisses the doll like a real human being. Of course, more clues are laid out as
the film progresses and it is revealed that she has stolen the doll from her
own company where she works.
What looks like a genre-bending journey is really the
director’s attempt at completing the picture of this woman’s strange obsession
with the doll in steps. The result is a layered portrait of a character who
exists at two levels, one who is taunting the audience with her antics and
keeping them in suspense on what she will do next to the doll, the other one
who is really a person in love, though a forbidden one. The cryptic film may
require a double take to piece together an understanding but this is really a
modern take on relationships and it is gratifying when you finally see the full
flesh (no bones) of it and get what it is trying to say to you.
Reviews by Jeremy Sing