Went to the Substation last night to watch three short films by local filmmaker Sherman Ong. The first film was a documentary about this 76-year-old Malay woman who lives on her own. Despite her age, she’s healthy and full of spunk. A very good subject to document as she rattled on, with little prompting, about her life back when she was younger. The audience giggled when she proudly proclaimed that Lee Kwan Yew is the best leader to have come into power and that she has never ever changed her vote.
Though not well-off, this old lady is clearly at peace with herself and her situation. I was touched when she said that she always gives at least a dollar whenever people come knocking on her door and begging for money. She said that it’s always good to show compassion and be kind to others. Whether the other person is a cheat or not, that’s between him and God. She goes on to say that although she does hanker for material wants like nice clothes whenever she sees her friends wearing them, she tells herself that she should be grateful that she’s happy, healthy, and not for want of a place to live and food to eat.
She was a delight to watch…such a spritely soul!
Next documentary showed young people’s reactions to two lines of song lyrics which the filmmaker had written on a piece of paper. The two lines were the first two lines of Singapore’s national anthem. These five/six people were asked to say what it meant to them and later also to talk about what are the things important to Singapore and important to themselves.
Not surprisingly, most of them didn’t have a clue what the two song lyrics meant. (For the non-Singaporeans, Singapore’s national anthem is in Malay, a language which is only spoken by about 15% of the population who’s of the Malay race.) Frankly, I don’t have a clue too and I’ve never had the compulsion to find out. I know, such apathy is bad.
The third film was a more experimental sort of film. It didn’t have any dialogue, but rather brought its message across through music and dance. It was a collaboration with some Javanese contemporary dance company. Anyway, it was about this shampoo girl wanting to get out of her present situation in life by learning to become a dancer like one of the rich customers of the hair salon she works at. So she follows this woman home and gets her to teach her how to dance. Anyway, it was rather bizarre as it had some homoerotic scenes. At least to me it seemed homoerotic though the filmmaker said in the Q & A session that it’s really left up to the audience to interpret as they see it. He didn’t set out to have it that way.
I’m not one who can appreciate such abstract dance kinda stuff. It’s just not my thing. So I kinda completely glazed over it. The first two films had more of an impact on me, and the second one especially got me thinking about the apathy that plagues so many Singaporeans. I’m guilty of it myself.
However I think the filmmaker was more concerned about exploring minority issues which was the theme of running through the three films. I guess he was trying to explore the fact that even though Malay is Singapore’s national language, only 15% of the population speak it. In Singapore, the Chinese are the majority, but look around the region, and we become the minority.
The Q&A session after the screening was quite interesting with people asking questions and the filmmaker responding to them. It made for some good intellectual stimulation.
Anyways, I’m not making much sense and am just rambling! It’s the end of the workday and my brain’s fried.