A Film a Week - I Dream of Singapore

previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

It is no secret that Singapore is one of the most desirable places to live on the Earth. The spirit of the city-state is quite international, the country is rich and secure in the terms of law and order, which makes the life there pleasant and predictable. Also, it is slowly becoming the largest business hub in South East Asia (partly due to uncertainty in Hong Kong) and is in constant need of work force, which makes it quite attractive to immigrant workers from South and South East Asia. However, there is always a flip side to it and the director Lei Yuan Bin exposes it in his documentary "I Dream of Singapore". After the world premiere at home turf (Singapore International Film Festival in November last year), the film premiered internationally at this year's edition of Berlinale in Panorama section.

The topic of the film is the fate of Bangladeshi workers that usually risked everything (and paid good money on the top of it) just to be able to work in Singapore, in order to earn more money and support their families back home. Due to their "transient worker" status, which is the norm, there is no chance of pinpointing their exact number, the estimates vary from 65.000 to 150.000 people. Most of them live in poor conditions (in basically furnished rooms in collective centres) and work in even poorer, usually doing the menial labour or risky construction work with little to no rights reserved to resident workers. The fact is that they are earning more money there than they would be able to in their home country, but with almost no benefits, in the legal "grey zone" and that they are facing police harassment and some racism and classism from the local population.

The story of the film is told from the perspective of Md. Feroz Al Mamun, an immigrant worker who suffered a severe work-related injury only to be denied the medical treatment, to be fired and deported home. Fortunately for him, Ethan Gao, the general manager of the NGO Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), took his side personally and pleaded his case while providing him with accommodation and fighting the legal battle so Feroz could get the proper treatment. The film pretty much covers his recovery and way back home and culminates with the two friends' emotional parting.

The director Lei Yuan Bin does well to balance different types of perspective in his film, going from more general to more specific and personal one. However, the general perspective he takes, usually in the beginning of the film, while observing the life and the hardships of the mass of migrant workers is also quite profiled: the workers' immigrant experiences are shaping the filmmaker's gaze. The tourist places like Cloud Forest on the top of Marina Bay Sands hotel, for instance, is also shot, but always in the context of workers visiting it on their day off work, in order to take pictures and send them home, which is kind of obligatory. In the contrast to that, their less than glamorous rooms and residential complexes also end up in frame, along with street life, depicting another type of experience, completely different from the "dream" part of the title.

There is also a piece of fine irony in the scene of Muslim prayer in an improvised "mosque", with a focus on the slogan on the white T-Shirt, stating "I Heart Singapore". That kind of love is, unfortunately, one-sided. The contrasts between Singapore and Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, seem very sharp at first, and Lei Yuan Bin arranges it that way on purpose, but for the worker, Feroz or someone like him, the only difference that remains is the different standard of life, while the essential hardship of hard labour and no legal protection remains basically the same.

Relying on the beautiful, evocative and moody cinematography and meditative editing by Wan Ping Looi, Lei succeeds to create a different type of documentary, highlighting its poetic qualities than its political urgency. However, "I Dream of Singapore" remains a socially charged piece of documentary filmmaking and paints an impressionist picture of the other side of the dream of a better life. It is an important film, as well as a good one.

A Film a Week - Wet Season

After his Camera d'Or-winning debut feature "Ilo Ilo" (2013), Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen re-teams again with his two leading actors Yan Yan Yeo and Jia Ler Koh to tell another story about surrogate motherhood and the life of the unprivileged in Singapore. This time, though, the relationship between the two characters is quite different and could be seen as riskier. "Wet Season" premiered at Toronto, before heading on a world tour of festivals.

Ling (Yan) is a Mandarin teacher at school and a complete outsider in Singaporean society. Her subject, though compulsory for the students, is taken less seriously than English and Maths. She is also an emigrant from the ranks of Malaysian Chinese minority, and the news reports about the unrest in neighbouring country she listens to affect her greatly. Her marriage with cold and distant Andrew (Christopher Ming-Shu Lee) is in dire straits, as they keep trying to conceive a child with no success. At home, she is relegated to the role of a housekeeper and a primary caregiver to her wheelchair-bound father in law (Shi Bin Yang) who spends his days watching old Hong Kong martial arts movies.

Ling finds only sense in life with the only student actually interested in her additional classes for those who are about to underachieve at final exams. His name is Weilun (Jia) and he initially just wants to please his parents who see Mandarin language as valuable asset for the future in doing business with China. What starts as a professional relationship, soon turns into something more. First she drives him to his home, then, after she realizes his parents are always absent, she conducts the classes at her place and finally she even assumes the role of an avid supporter at his wushu (an acrobatic form of martial arts) practices and competitions. Soon, the teenage boy starts romanticizing his teacher...

During the prolonged exposition of the film, which occupies more than a half of its 103 minutes runtime, Chen shows that he is more than capable to direct a slow-burning melodrama that juggles with a number of topics. His sense of pace is spot on and he allows emotions to build up. In the latter half, however, he falls victim to contraptions hiding in his own script full of common places of the melodrama genre, paired with some ethically dubious moments near the end. The filmmaker redeems himself with introducing a non-human character, the constant monsoon rain, that is responsible for creating the mood, the atmosphere and the visual identity of the film.

Technically, "Wet Season" is an accomplished piece of cinema, as the cinematographer Sam Care paints a uniquely realistic portrait of Singapore devoid of much of the often-seen glamour, which suits the general mood of the film and the issues Chen brings up. Care also visually captures the essence of the rain with a colder palette of colours, which is also in sync with Chen's script and directing.

Both of the actors fill their roles perfectly and whole-heartedly, until the plot reaches the point of no return. Their joined chemistry is an asset here, and so is the fact that they have some acting history together. Jia matured properly from their previous collaboration with the director and Yan has kept and even enlarged her integrity by playing a very complex character.

Even if it is far from a perfect film, "Wet Season" should be considered a noble effort with more pros than cons. That makes it a decent watch.

A Film a Week - Repossession

previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

Goh Ming Siu is a seasoned TV writer and director with dozens of credits to his name in his own country of Singapore. "Repossession", a film whose ambiguity in the title is its finest asset, is his feature debut. The film premiered at Cinequest Film Festival and we were able to catch it at Five Flavours Film Festival.

When we meet our protagonist, the middle-aged executive Jim (Gerald Chew, glimpsed in Boo Jungfeng's "Apprentice"), one might argue that his life is about to fall into a downward spiral. After decades of career, he is being fired from work. Or, more precisely, asked to leave because it would look better in his resume. Jim, however, is used to a bourgeois life style (hence his apartment and car) and is too much of an ego-maniac to come clean to his wife Linda (Amy Cheng of "Crazy Rich Asians" fame), his daughter and his friends, so he schemes every way he can to keep the facade: he puts a risky, but profitable investment portfolio, he moonlights as an Uber (or some such) driver, but his quest for a proper work that would fulfil him gets more and more futile.

For sure, Jim wrestles with his ego, but other things, possibly from out of this material world come to the play. While the creditors are about to repossess the material goods attached to his name, something spiritual goes on to do so with his loved ones. Are those just hallucinations or memories from the past in which Jim has picked up some bad karma or is he, his life and his family really under the threat?

The premise itself is interesting enough with the echoes of Stephen King novellas and a socially aware edge to it. The title also is brilliant in his ambiguity between the literal, material meaning and the metaphorical, fantastic one. The trouble is that Goh struggles to realize the complete potential for a feature film, even though "Repossession" would make a killer short if all the unnecessary repetitions ended up on the cutting room floor or the computer's recycle bin.

It is partly due to the screenplay he co-wrote with the actor Scott C. Hillyard (also known as Scott Chong) that is riddled with so much repetitions and does not get the film into action that is promised until much too late. The other trouble is Goh's directing style that never exceeds the basic television level and remains bland all the way. Budget is certainly an issue, but the formula is even a bigger one: it is pretty certain that Goh does not know when and how to position a special effects-laced action scene every now and then just to pick up the pace and reward the viewer for the patience and it is questionable if he is able to set and direct one.

This way, "Repossession" is much more of a tease than a full-blown horror movie or at least a chilling, atmospheric one. Neither it works as a socially aware drama where the genre influence is just an added layer of metaphor because it drawn too roughly and basically.

The acting is also sub-par, but it is hardly the actors' fault. Sure, both Gerald Chew and Amy Cheng are more active on television than in cinema, but they have demonstrated before that, with a proper text and leadership, they could do better. The trouble here is the lack of debt of Goh's vision, so everything that comes out of the actors' mouth sounds fake and way too rigid. On the other hand, well-controlled mostly hand-held camerawork by Woon Seong Chow and the editing by Gregory Tay, especially later on when it relies on jump cuts in horror-ish scenes, make "Repossession" at least a watchable viewing experience. An underwhelming one, but at least not terrible.