Boat to Pulau Ubin

4 years, 28 countries and no CGI, US$30 million of his own money, telling lies to cast members, entrusting much of the story to one 6-year old girl — surely no one can accuse Tarsem of being unfaithful to his artistic vision.

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• Read the entire 2011 issue for free.
• Visit the website of Imponderabilia, the international student anthropology journal.

“an issue worth waiting for:  full of good poetry, including poems from Elaine Feinstein, Caroline Carver, Lotte Kramer, Lynne Wycherley, and an amusing sequence from Peter Phillips.  Acumen also welcomes newcomers Kenneth Durham-Smith, Rod Mearing and Mingjuan Tan to its pages.”

Surprise winner of 2010′s best foreign film Oscar, this Argentinian film features the ubiquitous Ricardo Darín as retired cop Esposito, who wants to write a novel about an unsolved murder case which was pivotal to his personal life and career.

The Secret in Their Eyes is about the tension between the past, present and future. Esposito cannot help but be mired in his unresolved past: the unjustly closed case, his unrequited love for a woman beyond his reach, the unfair murder of a close friend, and above all his sense of failure and helplessness.

His wish to write this novel is perhaps his attempt, however overdue, to finally confront the past. At the heart of this, and in the face of fear and likely failure, is the dilemma between helpless stasis and taking action.

Despite what the characters may claim, the choice to make here is not between staying in the past or letting go. For how can it be possible to forget a past so compelling? The final twist at the end underlines the realisation which Esposito finally comes to: above fear, regret, and anger, it must be love which motivates action. However delayed or vengeful, it is action, and not passivity, that creates some kind of redemption – even if it will never be possible to let go of the past.

See also:

Inner Diablog
The Guardian

Chi Too’s short is a confrontational look at race relations in Malaysia.

Kok Lun rails bitterly against his lot: ostensibly because of the racial quota, he is rejected by the local university, and his family cannot afford other options. He ends up running an illegal VCD stall. When he tries to put up an advertisement for a sales assistant at the convenience store bulletin board, it is rejected because it is in Chinese. Even after he translates it into Malay, he is not allowed to post it, which amplifies his hate.

He ends up pasting the advertisement on the wall outside the shop. The camera zooms in on the text; the last criterion specified is that only Chinese applicants will be considered. Kok Lun’s vengeful action has other unwitting effects: a young Indian man walking past looks at the sign with interest, before realising with disgust that he, too, has been excluded.

That Kok Lun only wants a Chinese assistant for this dead-end job, which he would not be doing if not for the racial quota policies, is ironic. Not only does he consciously ‘perpetuate the cycle of discrimination’ between Malays and Chinese, as the filmmakers themselves put it, his actions also unconsciously feed into other, unrelated racial tensions. We do not see Kok Lun interacting with non-Chinese people – yet his vitriolic anger is personal, and has personal consequences, even for the innocent bystander.

What worked, for me: The nuanced acting, especially by Yeo Yann Yann and onscreen husband Lim Yu-Beng. The deft portrayal of Singaporean obsessions: house prices, good jobs, overseas degrees, status through material symbols such as country clubs and shiny cars, status, status, status.

The strong women and the way in which this theme was dealt with — (initially oblivious) girlfriend financing ne’er-do-well boyfriend’s studies, wife earning more than husband, widow’s final inheritance decision, unaccomplished son favoured over more ‘capable’ (a word reserved for women, because one does not expect them to be…?) daughter.

What didn’t, so much: The occasional descent into melodrama, particularly towards the end. The unsatisfying ending itself – ok, Irene begins a photography course, and Ma returns to her Malaysian hometown, although she will probably never make it as a singer. But what about wannabe-rock-star C.K., Mei with her condo aspirations, or even Seng with his seeming lack of ambition? Did they fulfil their dreams – or not – and does it matter?

C.K.’s conversation with the China beer girl touched on promising themes about vocation/passion versus mere occupation (paraphrasing: ‘that’s the difference between us: you gave up something you loved to do something you don’t like, whereas I do something I don’t like for something I love’), but the film failed to develop them further.

—

Vinita Ramani, for Criticine:

‘[The filmmakers] have chosen to locate their drama in a setting that has been – in some respects – already explored within a similar narrative framework (several characters; life in the HDBs; thwarted material ambitions; sexual repression/frustration). [...]

It will be interesting to see what direction Singapore filmmakers will forge, when they realise this story and this particular mood (ennui, frustration, unhappiness) has been milked to death. ‘

1967 Pregnant Julie and Algis
Oil on Canvas
42 x 64 inches / 106.7 x 162.6 cm
Private Collection

This was my favourite painting in the Alice Neel exhibition showing at London’s Whitechapel Museum. (This small, poor-quality image is nothing compared to the actual painting, but was the best I could find.)

‘Pregnant Julie”s expression is direct, even defiant in its take-it-or-leave it stare; this despite her intense vulnerability, in her nakedness and pregnant state. More so, perhaps, because she is the only unclothed one of the pair. Neel beautifully outlines the lines of the woman’s young body, poised as it is on the verge of maternity: the curve of belly and thighs, the rounded breasts, the arch of her back, the huge eyes.

Julie is the central figure here; her husband’s face and body are partially blocked by his wife’s head. (You can’t see their wedding rings in this picture, but they are clearly visible in the actual painting.) But his arm, while casually draped around her shoulder, is unmistakeably protective. This is perhaps reinforced by his gaze, immediately behind his wife’s, and parallel to hers in its directness. His wife’s wrist, too, rests easily against his elbow.

The interesting juxtaposition (and contrast?) here is that of Julie’s obvious vulnerability and her self-assurance, the almost insolent way in which she looks at the viewer.  Then follows the uncomfortable – or comforting, depending on how you look at it – question: is this power wholly hers, or is part of it contingent on her husband’s being there?

Chang Chien-Chi’s exhibition at the Singapore National Museum featured three main works: the first centering on Taiwanese men and their Vietnamese brides, the second juxtaposing the lives of migrant workers in New York and the families they left behind in Fujian, and the third a collection of portraits of madmen at a Chinese temple.

Most compelling perhaps was the last set of photographs. The controversial Taiwanese temple in Kaoshiung is where families, at their wits’ end as to how to handle relatives whose insanity cannot seem to be cured, send their madmen. The temple feeds and cares for these lunatics. It attempts to rehabilitate the patients by chaining them together in same-sex pairs, each pair consisting of a more lucid person and one whose condition is more severe, the former meant to lead the latter around. Although the temple claims no longer to employ this method, it is these pairs whom Chang photographed.

Thick metal chains are knotted around the patients’ waists, and secured around each person with the kind of u-shaped padlock one uses to lock doors. They are only allowed to be separated at night, when the patients are locked up indivdually to sleep. Looking at the lineup of portraits, the patients all shaved bald and in identical clothes, one cannot help but wonder which is the saner in each pair. For some it is obvious: a fat man has wet his pants, some of the urine staining his shirt; another stares cross-eyed at his feet; one person grins idiotically at the camera. Some pairs clutch each others’ hands, palms mismatched but hold tight. Others stand almost as far apart as their chains will allow them, one member eyeing the other as if looking at a curse. What is human dignity, and need it be accorded to those whose consciousness is incomplete? Each of the Kaoshiung temple’s madmen is isolated in his insanity, and all have been given up on by those closest to them. Sent to this establishment of compassion, they must each live the rest of their lives, alone, with a stranger.