Invisible City (2007)

Invisible City (Tan Pin Pin, 2007)

The only thing that is constant in this world is change. Singaporean documentary filmmaker Tan Pin Pin acknowledges the wisdom of the saying and from that understanding, crafts an engaging examination of the victims of this ever-constant change. In Invisible City, Tan focuses on her home base Singapore, a city-state which in the early fifties, is home to mangroves and fishermen, in the mid-sixties, has transformed into a bustling port where varying cultures repel and attract, in the seventies through the new millennium, has evolved into a formidable economy. At present, Singapore is the model modern city: a city that is made of glass, steel, and concrete, and functions with the precision of a clockwork machine. It seems that the city-state has forgotten its tremulous childhood, and Tan reconstructs from the relics of the past: a ruined fort in Sentosa, archived colored footage of Singapore in the fifties, a survivor of the horrors of the Japanese invasion, and stocked photographs of turbulent times.

Memory is a scarce and diminishing resource. Tan acknowledges this and uses it to add a very poignant dimension to her documentary. It is the fragility of human memory that becomes the heart of Invisible City. When Tan suddenly removes the visuals save for an uncomfortable black screen, leaving the commentary of Ivan Polunin, an elderly man whose final work is to preserve the invaluable footage of Singapore in the fifties which he recorded while in a medical mission. In the midst of complete darkness, it is his voice, oftentimes faltering when his delicate memory fails him, that provides the only stimulus, enough to elicit a bevy of emotions: overpowering melancholy, comforting reminiscence, harsh frustration, and faint joy.

Memory, being impermanent, needs a repository to outlive change. This is the reason why Polunin insists that his treasure be re-recorded with his commentary in it. This is the reason why Han Sanyuan, a Chinese-Singaporean who vividly recalls the abuses dealt to him and his fellow Chinese during his student activist days, keeps the photographs that show these abuses as proof of what already seems to have been forgotten. This is the reason why a tree was planted by the Japanese royal family to commemorate their visit in Singapore decades ago.

A semblance of immortality is erected when memory is etched into timeless relics, like the ancient fort that is being excavated by the local archaeologist who observe mundane details (like coke bottles and other pieces of garbage) to discover the manner of living decades ago. Tan branches from the archaeologist's historic endeavor and spends time with the graffiti on the walls of the site: all of which are signals of man's insistence for immortality.

Memory, more than being impermanent, is personal. There is no assurance that our memories would have any impact except to the wall, the footage, or the photographs that contain them. Tan's documentary concludes with Han giving a lecture to a class of Chinese-Singaporean students. Tan's camera observes the faces of the youth: sometimes amused although overtly disinterested. Han exclaims his disappointed. There is no longer an audience for his memories. He along with all of Tan's subjects are living in a city that has changed too fast, not only physically but spiritually. With Invisible City, Tan lyrically mourns with them.

Be With Me (2005)

Be With Me (Eric Khoo, 2005)

Eric Khoo has matured as a filmmaker ever since his feature film debut Mee Pok Man (1995). Be With Me, Khoo's third feature is a near-silent film whose narrative experimentations doesn't feel contrived as it could be, but instead, is rather tender, sensitive and utterly beautiful. Khoo's visuals are pretty. Singapore's urbane locales are bathed with cool, metallic colors. It's more human tenements are rustic and painted with comfortable browns. It feels very different from the Singapore Khoo painted in Mee Pok Man. That Singapore was ugly, filthy and cruel. Be With Me's Singapore is a land of opportunity and emotional depth, despite being covered by a ton of steel, glass, and financial and technological success.

Be With Me is basically three stories intertwined by fateful connections. The base of the three stories is real life character Theresa Chan, a sixty one year old woman who was blinded at fourteen, and became deaf at twelve. In the film, her autobiography is being translated by Brian (Jason Tan), who hasn't visited his father as regularly as possible. Brian's father is an eternally depressed person after his wife has died. It's a beautiful gesture to the strength of a lifelong marriage that Khoo decided to materialize Brian's dad's nostalgia with the wife physically being seen and felt by the sorrowful father.

The two other stories revolve around tales of unrequited love. Fatty (Seet Keng Yew), a security guard, is secretly in love with beautiful yuppie Ann (Lynn Poh). It's a tragic romance which can never blossom because of the differences between the two, and the fact that Fatty is not that intelligent. Fatty struggles to write a love letter to the lovely Ann, whom he secretly stalks every night. Finally, there is the erstwhile lesbian romance between Sam (Samantha Tan) and Jackie (Ezann Lee). In what seems to be a result of the tired notion of love at first sight, the two fall helplessly in love until one gets tired and tries to find love the heterosexual way.

The film is carefully paced. While the set-up is slow, it's never boring. Spoken words are never used, except in certain instances mostly by Theresa who dictates English in strong and proud aural tones. Communication in Be With Me is limited to internet chatting, cellular phone texting, or in Fatty's case, a love letter. Khoo has a clear message as to how love has suffered in the midst of easy communication. The lesbian romance ends in a sour note. Khoo details how messages of resonating impact are easily deleted in the click of a button, and how a reply has become an easy decision instead of the tactful way of reacting to a emotional question. As opposed to Fatty's tale wherein communication is so difficult that the possibility of love is squandered because of illiteracy or the impossible expectations of a modern society.

The two tragic tales could've been melodramatic misfires if it weren't for the sturdy and well-observed way Khoo connects it to Theresa Chan's portion. Theresa and Brian's father meet in the end, with the father finally letting go of his wife and erupting in a mournful embrace to the source of inspiration for his emotional recovery. Theresa's blindness and deafness (which weren't there when she was born, therefore she has an idea how it feels like to have all his facilities working) is a powerful symbol of letting go, as connected with the father's incapability to let go of a beautiful past, or Fatty's incapability to let go of what could be a beautiful future, or Jackie's incapability to let go of a beautiful present relationship with Sam.

Mee Pok Man (1995)

Mee Pok Man (Eric Khoo, 1995)

Eric Khoo is credited for reviving Singaporean cinema with his first feature film, Mee Pok Man. The funny thing is Khoo isn't really satisfied with just reviving what was supposedly dead for almost two decades. He just had to stretch the limits of the Singaporean government's strict censoring body, and gratuitiously adds snippets that would most certainly raise the eyebrows of the censors. Mee Pok Man begins with a montage of fastly cut images of the dirt, the grime, the Singapore media wouldn't dare show us. Interspersed between the images of the neon lights of the red light district of the city-state, trashcans, meat, and food are pictures of a single nipple, a resting butt, and a female's pubic hair area. Just for that thirty seconds of bravery against a government that punishes gum-chewing and sidewalk spitting with lashes of bamboo canes, Khoo deserves all my praise.

Mee Pok Man, without the courageous opening montage, is quite intriguing. A mee pok (a noodle dish served with soup and fish balls) vendor (Joe Ng) is enchanted by street hooker Bunny (Michelle Goh), who usually spends the night at the food stall with her co-workers, where their pimp Mike Kor (Kay Tong Lim) will eventually pick them up and bring them to their booked engagements. One night, Bunny is bumped by a car and is rescued by the street food vendor and brought and taken care of in his place, resulting in a quiet and terminated romantic relationship that forces the morose vendor to open up and release his pent-up angst.

Perhaps the most fascinating thing about Mee Pok Man is that it sort of tried to pierce the mythology that there are no poor people in Singapore, one of the richest cities in the world. Khoo's painting of Singapore's more impoverished districts is very much like that of crowded Hong Kong, or Bangkok where citizens live in unadorned tenements, and survive and eat at street food places. Khoo's characters are pitiful --- these are the Singaporeans who got left behind, the sad, forgotten ones. These are the citizens who didn't meet the requirements of success and are left to sell their bodies, or their food products, or steal, or rely on debts, or share in a collective hope of being something more than they are. This is the focus of Mee Pok Man, where dreams and ambitions of a better life are caged up in a society that takes pride in rigid rules of excellence, and that unless you catch up with everyone, you are left in the trash bin with other rejects.

Khoo's unflinching commentary of the almost inhumane rigid societal norms that have lead Singapore to success is subtly inputted in the mee pok vendor and Bunny's unaccomplished love affair. Bunny is a dreamer who hopes that her British photographer boyfriend will bring her to London. When her brother discovers her diary, we become aware of Bunny as a human being whose dreams and ambitions are carried over since her school days. The vendor on the other hand is a recluse. He barely speaks, but when he does, it is with wary satisfaction of the fact that this is only what he can do --- to cook noodles, and the only other thing he can aspire for, is not money, material things, or traveling the world, but love. When Bunny dies, he doesn't forgo of that accomplished goal and in a disturbing yet interestingly passionate way, nurtures that one night of human connection beyond death. It's a tragic consequence of being forgotten and kept secret: that notions of goal and ambition take form in a queer and almost unnatural form, but still distinctly very human.