Sunday, February 18, 2007

On The First Day Of The New Year

I really didn’t expect to get an ang pow in London over Chinese New Year this year, so it was certainly a nice surprise and a welcome gesture. We were gathering in the Swinger’s dorm room, and towards the end, with a unexpected flourish, the red packets were brandished suddenly. Just for a while, home didn't feel that far away.

Sunday marked not only the first day of the Year of the Pig, but also the start of East Asia Week 2007 in the hall. It’s a series of celebratory events which a few of us are helping to organize in conjunction with the Lunar New Year. Earlier, we had a cooking demonstration, courtesy of master chef, the Swinger – how does he find time to cook, to study and to swing? – and then a screening in the evening of “Be With Me”, the most recent film by Singaporean director Eric Khoo.

Coming up later in the week are two more movie screenings, a port talk on Chinese ceramics, a possible children’s event and, to round it off, a grand East Asian Cultural Night on Saturday. I really hope it will turn out well. I hope the entertainment items lined up will take place without a hitch. Most of all, given my usual fixation, I hope that the food doesn’t run out. We don’t want our participants going away hungry and angry.

But back to “Be With Me”. It’s a movie which I first saw on the big screen in Singapore before coming to London. And I was instantly transfixed. The themes of love and loneliness and a lingering yearning is something we can all understand easily, wherever we come from. We can't always get what we want, can we? We have to deal with hurt, with rejection, with betrayal. And despite that, we have to continue living on, heading into the next day. For there really is no other way.

So, for me at least, it was a very touching movie. I find it amazing how Eric Khoo manages brilliantly to convey so much through what essentially is a silent movie, with hardly any dialogue, and yet without the use as well of a dominant music soundtrack. And for these and other reasons, I think it’s one of the few Singapore films that can travel international successfully.

I have a passing interest in this area, having been involved earlier in the establishment in the Singapore Film Commission. Later, while working at the Embassy in Washington, one of the public diplomacy projects I wanted to set up was to organize public screenings of Singapore films. But I didn't pull it off. One main problem was that there was only a small selection of local works available, especially those which could speak to international audiences.

To be sure, we do have some titles, especially those in Mandarin from Raintree Pictures, which have done well throughout East Asia. But many others, with their use of Singlish and local dialects, and with their insular themes – while they may touch Singaporeans intimately, they are essentially alien to those abroad. Perhaps this is one dilemma in the development of a national cinema – the tension between international acceptance and local relevance.

With time, however, and with lots of experimentation, I think we will one day have a good slate of Singapore films which will deal with more universal themes, even while retaining a distinctive local voice, and which will therefore be better able to represent the country. And with time, the overall production quality should also improve. In this effort, films such as “Be With Me” have set a good standard. It’s subtle and it’s minimalist, but it leaves a profound impact.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmm ... I think the kissing scenes we watched on TV on Sat night were more passionate ...

10:56 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home