A very slow paced, quiet little film from Singapore that interweaves three separate stories together into a coherent whole. When I say quiet, I mean that literally. The dialog is sparse, with the bulk of the interaction occuring without anything spoken. The themes are loneliness, unrequited love, and secret longings.
The characters are well drawn and one never loses the sense of the film in spite of the austere nature of its unfolding. The emotions play out with genuine heart and one feels empathy for each of the characters. The film suffers however, from a lack of any real focus. It appears to be a vehicle for introducing us to a real, flesh and blood woman of outstanding courage and accomplishment, and did so in a most oblique way. This viewer felt that the material would have been more direct if the biographical information had been left out, or had been developed as a separate documentary. As presented, it did little to inform the central themes and one felt like there wasn't enough story for the film to stand on its own. It was almost as if the biography was inserted to stretch the film to something closer to feature length. Watch it for a view of life in this tiny asian nation, and for the message it conveys even in spite of its flaws. Just don't expect heart stopping action or witty dialog. It's not there.
July 31, 2009
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