Actualités

By Goh Ming Siu

Fade up on a mountain of rocks in a quarry — raw material for construction, for literal nation-building, yet mining also destabilizes the land. The shot tracks along, as we hear a distant rumble – is it a storm on the horizon, far-off construction, or something more ominous? The camera comes to rest on an empty frame. The protagonist, Lim Cheng Soon (Peter Yu) and his brother Cheng Boon (Johnson Choo) rise from below, where they’ve been digging for rocks, up into frame.

An opening that encapsulates a film where everything important is operating under the surface, a film that needs one to excavate it for a meaningful experience. Hemingway-esque in its sparseness but also in its hidden richness and depth, much like the films of Edward Yang. We think we know what’s going to happen, because we’re familiar with the tropes. Yet at every turn,...

By Goh Ming Siu

Fade up on a mountain of rocks in a quarry — raw material for construction, for literal nation-building, yet mining also destabilizes the land. The shot tracks along, as we hear a distant rumble – is it a storm on the horizon, far-off construction, or something more ominous? The camera comes to rest on an empty frame. The protagonist, Lim Cheng Soon (Peter Yu) and his brother Cheng Boon (Johnson Choo) rise from below, where they've been digging for rocks, up into frame.

An opening that encapsulates a film where everything important is operating under the surface, a film that needs one to excavate it for a meaningful experience. Hemingway-esque in its sparseness but also in its hidden richness and depth, much like the films of Edward Yang. We think we know what's going to happen, because we're familiar with the tropes. Yet at every turn, we're...