Don't let the spice of life run out: Thoughts about the selections in SGIFF’s Asian Feature Film Competition

For a more positive version of this text’s opening, may I suggest you look inside Netflix’s belly? I’m sure that it went there with Warner Bros., along with the industry’s variety and vibrancy, when the streamer decided to be a black hole. And since this merger happened the day before the awards night, a proverbial cloud was hanging above us throughout. The shine and the charge of both the fest and its attendees were notably, and understandably, dimmer.

But despite this reality, the one where the wallets of a few get to siphon off the culture of all to avoid “failures” and “unpredictables” (imbuing entertainment with the traits of a utopia — as if utopias have always worked!), I believe we should press on. We should continue to discover and recognize filmic experiences that are outlying, that still believe in creativity. Let’s use recognition to spotlight a film’s efforts to reject standardization and mechanization, or to also consider that notion alongside the usual, i.e., a film’s ability to enliven one’s senses.

Although my fellow jury members and I could only award one film, we think all 10 entries in SGIFF’s Asian Feature Film Competition this year deserved attention. They all exude the need to be distinct in both their storylines and the manner in which they are told. They all give hope that filmic efforts refusing to be just the latest cogs in the machine, or quick bites for merger mongers the slop sympathizers, would still be made. Sure, they will have fewer buzzwords to placate hollow trends and, from there, earning more time in development hell, there’d still be attempts to have them made.

The reason to make these works, no matter what? It will be easier to film things that thrill when a creative has confidence in their ability to create. I think both MAG MAG by Yuriyan Retriever and Black Rabbit, White Rabbit by Shahram Mokri best represent this notion. It was lovely to be enveloped by the darkness and the audiovisuals, and then being unable to predict the film’s next beat. For me, that last bit was crucial — still is, long after my first go-round with both films. Instead of reaching for “safety,” both filmmakers still aim to provide surprises. Through Retriever’s J-horror monster that will kill boys with love (and smooch loudly to signal its arrival!) and Mokri’s inclusion of reality-breaking loops into a production, they don’t back down, but instead commit. In other words, they trust themselves, first and foremost.

Another reason to make these works, no matter what: only they can give us the opportunity to be curious. Like providing surprises, as mentioned, igniting curiosity is far from a novel notion, but it is being forgotten in the name of “safety.” I’m glad Shape of Momo by Tribeny Rai, Amoeba by Tan Siyou and Cactus Pears by Rohan Parashuram Kanawade can still devise ways to make me ask one more question, learn one more detail, etc. — if not through the arguments then through an acute awareness of its setting (and associated elements). All three films call out norms that deserve to be outgrown for life to really go on, but the methods used, results earned and consequences felt are unique to Bishnu, Choo Xin Yu and Anand. I can distinguish them from one another, and even from others sharing their scenarios.

Enabling curiosity is also great for my interest in film’s technical side, allowing me to spot that in a film, despite delivering the same old thesis that we are more than the surface suggests: a viewer is more likely to grasp this if they engage with the conversations in Riverstone by Lalith Rathnayake or lean into quietude in Two Seasons, Two Strangers by Sho Miyake. As an aside, Riverstone also marks my first-time seeing Sri Lanka on film. Surprise: I’m now curious about its cinema overall, as well as its particular stance on crime and punishment (and how much truth there is regarding those brushes of understanding between law enforcers and lawbreakers depicted).

Interestingly enough, there are films here that let me peek into a reality where we no longer have that human spark. This is a good move by the programmers, if that had been their intention. In A Useful Ghost by Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, it feels as if remembering — to hold memories and histories — is a crime. As for Always by Chen Deming, in particular its young poetic subject, the colors of the world will switch — perhaps not to paler palettes but ones thicker with lament.

That, in a way, seems like the 1.0 version of life in the awarded film, Human Resource by Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit: so samey, flattened, and bleached-out is the lead’s life that she will turn on classical tunes not to enjoy, or be reminded of possibilities, but to mute the soul’s lament and inherent pursuit of variation (and its wonders and warts). That’s horrifying.

But may we press on, as the film reminds us. As the rest of the selection too, each in their own form and function. The game’s only over if we let it be.

By Nguyen Le
Edited by Birgit Beumers
Copyright FIPRESCI