Author Archives: nauvalyazid

(Siffest means perfection, where lateness in the screening time does not happen and abrupt electrical failure is a big no-no during the screening.)

Oh really?

Tonite marked the rare occurence of sudden interruption due to the technical failure that happened exactly in the middle of the screening. Whereas such disturbance usually takes place in the beginning, luckily this jolt did not interrupt our viewing digestion.

You know exactly if this kind of thing is felt, then the film is surely something special to talk about.

Or perhaps we should personify this film as it carries the name that speaks of beauty and fragility.

Her name is Yasmin.

She is a Pakistani (Paki) woman, living a working-class life in UK whose self-esteem life was shaken to the core due to the unfortunate event of 9’11”. Her family is torn apart, her shelter of love life shatters, her breadwinning job dismisses her, and she begins questioning the faith she believes in.

So much of paranoia is shown vividly throughout the entire film, some might be a good dose of humor, at times turning this film to a dark comedy territory.
Yet, most of the time, the film speaks to the hearts of minorities everywhere, what it’s like to be seen and treated differently while what you’ve got, is only yourself to stand up tall and straight.

Simon Beaufoy‘s tight script allows the film to move flawlessly for us to see what it’s like to be a part of society being the object of hatred from the bigger cliques.
Kenneth Glenaan‘s marvellous direction swifts nicely for us to feel like being inside the film.
And carrying the titular role, Archie Panjabi couldn’t be more believable in portraying her well-drawn character.

The way she whisks her husband to obey her.

The way she surrenders to reality.

The way she laughs at hedonism.

Finally, a film that is worth standing ovation for its bravery and independent spirit in showing the real world as it is.

But, what about that failure disruption?

Well, what failure disruption?

(Siffest is annual pilgrimage for film-enthusiasts in Singapore where suddenly Shaw Towers building feels alive, thanks to the flock of people who seem to have lack of choices except to roam around the almost-dead building while waiting for their screenings.)

It may be best to get yourself feeling full, but not bloated, after taking lunch, for it helps you survive through the afternoon-session of film screenings, be them for 2 pm or 4 pm show.

In fact, heavy lunch will not knock you down to sleep, you’ve got enough energy to sustain and to keep you awake throughout art-y flicks which are initially made solely based on ideas, without any intention for the makers to put themselves in audience’s shoes. Any audience intended, and that means their own group of niche market.

Yet, there is still quite a number of audience who are willing to take the risk of bracing themselves in fronting these self-ego work of arts. The ocean of 12 people in Singapore History Museum this afternoon who gathered to see Faozan Rizal‘s labor of love film, Aries, is the pool of people with different background united in the spirit of Zen: peacefulness.

Which translates nicely into dozing off.

Whether these audience had a big lunch like what I had had is beyond my knowledge, but their ability to stay throughout the real surrealist film amazed me, eventhough it had to be paid off with missing a few scenes, thanks to the sleep.

On the other hand, having too much of your meal for dinner did not serve well if you watch Notre Musique afterwards. The latest from one of the icons in French New-Wave movement, Jean-Luc Godard, the film starts with horrifying images of living in the world as one helluva hell on earth. Move forward, we begin to unravel the film as interrogative proclamation on bridging endless philosophic question of life/death, hell/heaven, and subtly, freedom/restriction.

Gone was the signatural off-beat and hip style of Godard, certainly the major reason among most of the audience why they chose to attend this screening instead of more popular Tarnation. Depending on how one sees this part-documentary, part-narrative film, I find Godard sings his film a little off-key, and the false note might be a little too much for some audience who decided to walk out when the film has not even reached its half point.

Just like one’s feeling after eating what he craves for, so much of the anticipation yet you don’t get enough satisfaction.

(Siffest stands for Singapore International Film Festival which turns 18 this year. A little above being under-age, but can’t be considered mature enough. Nice!)

This year supposed to be my, what, fifth or sixth year of experiencing Siffest? Yet there’s one thing keeps being repeated every year and you may accuse me of being ignorant or never learned from the past mistake:

extra rest or enough sleep for the next day’s 11 am show.

Because staying up late the night before would only result in waking up late the next day, and you’ve got to rush to the inaccessible Shaw Towers which takes about 30-45 minutes to reach from your place of stay. Add the mulling of Aki’s inability to find anyone up to the extra ticket he had, an anxiety over being late, the unforgivably dark cinema hall of Jade 2 that made us have to head almost blindly in searching for our seats, my first film of the fest this year turned out to be quite a mediocre, not as bad as last year’s bumpy start of Little Men though, if we talk about ‘watchable’.

Eastern Sugar (Szezon), the entry from Hungary, is being placed under time schedule that surely left its intended audience scratching their heads. An R21 (only 21 years old and above are permitted) film shown at the hour when most adults are still on the bed having hangover from the euphoria of Friday nite’s out? And the question is justified by the presence of its impossibly gorgeous cast of actors that seem to be taken out directly from any porn films.
Yet, those quality prevail in making people still turn their head and glued to the film until the end, although the film may have nothing much to boast about, except the overtly done homo-erotic tones which overlaps its half-baked story.

On the other hand, a film with quite an apparent corny title like When Beckham Met Owen made a delightful passing time activity.
Shot in digital format, the film presents an unpolished look of suburban life in Hong Kong, and this time it centers around rite passage of manhood from two school boys who embark on the quest of figuring out their sexual orientation, effortlessly.
Throw in the usual element of a girl in between the two, harsh life of lower-middle class neighborhood, the film has its charms as shown through many inside jokes that never fail to crack the audiences up. Too many of the jokes may seem to fill in the screntime of the film, leaving a forgettable abrupt ending that does not serve to be in synch with the comic potential of the film.

Still a great start after all, a fabulous encounter with an old friend who is truly a survivor of the region’s film festivals, and he’s none other than Zefri, my F-buddy whom I’m sure we’ll get to see each other more often the next days onwards.

That’s just one, more to come.

It’s the time of the year again.

Film enthusiasts (notice how I seldom use ‘buff’ after film, after all, most of film freaks are not, sadly, buffed!) in Singapore embrace the long-month of April with one clear intention in mind which, as sacred as pilgrimage, has become some kind of routine that will defy any other daily activities, at least they will be put on hold for two weeks. Hey, it ain’t that bad! Two weeks of nothing but films unlikely getting theatrical releases, or if they will, surely scissors of censorship would be happily butchering them into some, well, butchered flicks.

Welcome to the 18th Singapore International Film Festival, 14-30 April 2005.

As years pass by, as the number increases, so are the “guides”, and here’s 18 ways to behave, to adapt, to not be yourself, to transform, to survive, and most of all, to enjoy the whirlwind experience throughout the festive season:

1. Set your dates free
Surely you don’t want to be interrupted with late-nite work or unannounced visit of your friends or relatives who do not know your antics being a film-maniac. This will include using up your annual leave days, and do it in style: if you have to catch a 7 pm-film and your workplace is quite a distant from the cinemas (note: it’s the cinemas that are not accessible, folks!), get a half-day leave! Honey, Michael Douglas may say “Greed is Good” and won an Oscar for it, but greediness for watching films? Get a life!

2. Complains!
Oh oh oh! Flood the forums in SGFilm or the SIFFest website itself with your complains! Surely no SIFFest would properly start without hearing any complains on a) the choice of films that lacks of mass-appeal, b) increase steep of ticket price, c) clash-schedule of latest Godard’s work vs. some new indie director whose film sweeps many awards, d) neglected cinemas, e) inefficiency of SIFFest team (hey, give them a break! They’re running on a cash-strapped management!), and the list goes on and on. Oh, did I mention about increasing number of banned films?

3. Do not stay up late on weekends!
Why?
Chances are that you will be watching more than two films on weekends when the schedule on both days start as early as 11 am, and lasts until the usual 9 pm-schedule. What I’m trying to say is that you’ve got to keep your stamina when you watch 4 films in a row (!!!), and certainly having sex the nite before that lasts until dawn is not recommended.

4. Or go clubbing, partying, c’mon, give them a rest for a while. Don’t be afraid they’ll close down soon like Centro or Embassy, they’ll be fine if we’re absent for a little time.

5. Get yourself familiarized with the route!
Most of the screenings you’re gonna attend will be shown in Shaw Tower, Bugis, which is inconveniently located exactly between Bugis MRT and City Hall MRT. Which one? Not both of them! It’s time to get used to taking bus, and kindly refer to SBS website for the bus information. Hey, not every information I’ve got in hand!

6. And getting handy with meals would be another challenging thing!
Let’s see if you can survive on Burger King for those two weeks! And no matter how you claim that Subway is healthier, it doesn’t help if you put way too much mustard on it. The solution? Try out some outlets in the food court only when you have morning shows on weekends as most of them are closed by 7 pm., so by the time you are catching 9 pm-show, you’ll be starving. And believe me, there can be no greater pleasure in bringing your own food, after all …

7. Oooppss! Have you extra money to spare?
This event is surely the most money-draining activity for any underpaid breadwinner, and things do not look good within horizon if the rumors that they’re going to increase the ticket (again!) by next year does come true. The increase in this year itself already forms to be a burden, moreover with SISTIC handling the ticketing system, God knows what kind of cursing has been uttered.
Oh well, rob the bank, break kindergarten pupils’ piggy-banks, ask for loan, guess we all should learn from those junkies on how they survive, don’t we? Hmmm…

8. No popcorn! No latecomers!
Erm, no easily-forgotten Hollywood trash is shown here, and anyone walking inside a theater with a bucket of popcorn would be met with a lot of eyebrows raising. No eating please, this is the time when everybody gets seriously pretending to be serious, so it’s all a hush-hush affair.
And that also explains why you can’t afford to come late, not only it will disrupt the people sitting next to you or basically anyone in the theater, but those cinemas in Shaw Tower belong to some of the darkest cinemas here. No flashing sign of rows and seat number, and my oh my, you have no idea how you may get lost in Prince 1 with 1,000-plus seats! Which brings me to something else …

9. Get your tickets early!
A one-time showing to feed a country in which its cinema-attendance is one of the highest in the world? Be kiasu or be left behind! Even if the film is shown in that Prince 1 theatre, No Man’s Land was a box-office hit some time back, and even Uzak for last year.

10. You get to know the crowd, which is fairly predictable. Arisan! was flooded with Indonesians, so was Bridal Shower with Filipinos, and Lan Yu was jam-packed with gays, the fact goes on and on …

11. It’s wonderful!

12. It’s marvelous!

13. It’s superb!

14. It’s great!

15. It’s a life-changing experience!

16. It thrills!

17. It’s gorgeous!

18. It’s the festive season which you surely will indulge. What else can I say, except to ENJOY, have fun and if you get hooked up with fellow cinephiles, you know who to thank 😉

Yeah, lucky you!

What if you have a boss that is half your age, and your boss is dating your daughter?

What kind of question is this?

For sure I can’t relate myself to the first question, but given the assumption that if such a thing does happen in an opposite point of view, then the boss should be around my age, and I can see where this judgment would be based on: the view of twenty-something yuppies whom every envied adults would like to say, “The time’s on your side, have fun!”

Indeed, Chris Weitz had a blast in mis-matching the unlikely pair of Dennis Quaid as the sacked ad salesman with Topher Grace as his ambitious younger (much younger) boss who passionately driven to achieve nothing but figures while neglecting his employees to suffer, something that Quaid’s Dan Foreman actually excels in. Add in to their bitter, jittery relationship is Scarlett Johansson’s Alex, Dan’s eldest daughter who is smitten by Grace’s Carter Dureya with all his kookiness and hidden charm. All three perform a ménage-a-trois relationship in clean slate manner enough to garner the film a PG rating although I deem Johansson’s presence is a bit overtly sexual for her character as an 18-year old fresh college student, yet the way she cuddles around Quaid proves to be a lovable look of how a father-daughter closeness should be.

However, if there’s a film whereby the performance of its one relatively-new star overwhelms the film itself, then the credit goes to Topher Grace. Having hidden for too long under the shadow of That 70’s Show ensemble, Grace gracefully embraces his role in a suave, charming manner yet enough to reveal his character’s multi-layered behaviors very well, which surely paved his way to be one reliable actor in the future. Of course, playing a character of the same age does add his effortless way to slip into the shoes of Carter Dureya’s charismatic presence, yet Grace manages to tower over Quaid’s steady-like figure and Johansson’s uneasy performance.

What if Topher Grace becomes the next leading man?

Stick to exploring his sensitivity first, please.

Final Verdict : One would surely be ‘In Good Company’ when watching this enjoyable flick, thanks to believable, eclectic performance from its cast, particularly Topher Grace in his star-making role.

Grade : B

Nauval’s note:
-scattered words- series is a series of scattered files in the form of Notepad or Microsoft Word files that are found on my computer and were made long time ago, when blogging was never heard of, when publishing my thoughts to residents of virtual world never came across to my mind. Alas, you will see the progress in how I have evolved, to some extent, and particularly in this case, when the notes below were written sometime back in 2003, when I already started paying attention to film-review, sort of. Save your accusations for later cause, just read if you want to, no harms were done to the people working on dvd-rental stores as I always returned the dvds on time, or to the ushers of cinema halls as I politely woke up by myself after drooling on my sleeps upon watching some horrible films that were best left dreaming. Enjoy!

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MOVIES SEEN BUT NOT MADE TO MY LIST :

(not in any particular order)

1. DAYS OF BEING WILD
reason: Wong Kar Wai at his absurdness! While it portrays Leslie Cheung and Maggie Cheung applaudable performances well, and stealing scenes from Rebecca Pan, one can’t help wondering, what Andy Lau’s character has got to do with the whole storyline? (and I suspect the same case happens to Jacky Cheung’s appearance in “Chungking Express”?)

(present reflection: Oh how Ben‘s gonna bash me for this! Hahahaha! My deep apology to all WKW’s fan, it took me a little longer to finally appreciate WKW’s gorgeousness of self-indulgent cinematic experience in which arts melts into pieces of scenes in which every angle would scream “grandeur!”, and not to mention understanding his masterful grasp of underlaying emotions of the characters through subtext of his powerful cinematographic films. Call it pretentious or overtly-stylized, yet WKW stands tall as one of the most respectable directors the modern cinema would shamelessly bow to his greatness.)

2. SOLYARIS (Solaris) (1971)
reason: Intolerably tedious w/ unnecessary scenes go lengthy! Even me and Pei Chin had to take turn sleeping (me at the end of the first part, and she at the beginning)! If you are claustrophobic, definitely this film is something I won’t recommend to you as a cure.

(present reflection: I wholeheartedly stick to my point above, despite getting enough exposure on Andrei Tarkovsky from some articles found in Sights & Sounds earlier this month. It doesn’t mean that I’m not gonna go for his other movies though, but I guess for anyone to make a 4-hour film in a slow-pace movement depicting about the life inside a space shuttle, audience may choose to go for suicidal thoughts happily rather than sacrificing themselves to be tortured mentally. Yet, some scenes in the film linger on my mind until now, particularly the traffic scene in which Andrei chose to show the image of street lights forming into linear pattern, an image impossibly made in the era when the film was made, yet the result strikes as familiar to modern audience.)

3. LA FAUSSE SUIVANTE (The False Servant)
reason: While the concept of transforming a play into a (low budget) film never works any better than this, I can’t help thinking that the lines are uttered plainly, a la French do their talking, maybe? Don’t blame me for falling asleep in the middle of crucial part, but after all, the screenplay puts a nice touch to the characterization of the roles.

(present reflection: Have you ever had an experience that you dislike a certain film so much, yet the film sticks on your memory after it has long gone? This is what I feel towards the film until now, for I can still recall the vivid “staging” the film is made, in which the whole story about the ship-wreck is staged in an entire theatre hall, and the director made it obvious! Perhaps an experiment of a not-properly-tested breakthrough, the main draw of this film lies on Isabelle Huppert’s dignified presence, yet I should’ve known that if I wanted to go for this, I would’ve chosen her other far more superb works.)

4. TO CATCH A THIEF
reason: Surely the film’s breathtaking cinematography match the catch-me-if-you-can
thriller Hitchcock is best known as in 1950’s, it’s just a matter of time I took when I watched this film. A lesson learned: NEVER watch any thrillers in midday! Definitely one of those films I’m gonna watch again.

(present reflection: Blame it on a heaty afternoon that made me lose my concentration in watching this enjoyable flick which is not supposedly requiring any particular attention in the first place! There you go, figure it out yourself, this is Hitchcock’s at his relaxed, playful direction like the way he did in The Trouble with Harry or even Notorious. Considering the pairing of Grace Kelly and Cary Grant is something worth watching itself, I may have to watch this film one more time before I can give my fair judgment.)