Pride Of Men
Like many, I was just intrigued in Boo Junfeng’s works and had been looking for a chance to screen the film so when Darren alerted me to it, I quickly signed up for it… I mean, it’s a banned film so it’s very rare that it’s being screened like this, I’m only human – like you, I’ve the temptation to taste the forbidden fruit. Originally, there was going to be two screening of these shorts – today and tomorrow but due to popular demand, they scheduled a screening on November 4th which I’ve since heard that it’s sold out.
Hush SHOULD be made into a full-length feature film! It has potential.
Both “Hush” and “Katong Fugue” (pronounced: Few-K ) present opposing ideas about secrets.”Hush” focuses on Alice, the eldest daughter and breadwinner of the family who always works late, which upsets her father’s attempts to bond the family together while at the same time, grappling with her own confused sexuality. This is paralleled with a secondary plot where a twin discovers her boyfriend is two-timing her and her sister. In both plots, the use of dramatic irony at the climax reveals that the male characters concealing information; the father’s concealment that Alice is adopted and the boyfriend is actually dating another girl. “Katong Fugue” is a series of family related montages, a conversation between a son with a hidden life, whose mother hopelessly trying to reach out while he prevents it, presumably to maintain the mother-son relationship. Both speak using metaphors of the family’s past, such as playing the piano, entering the son’s room, the beach and the sea as references to the son’s insistence on setting himself apart.
While “Hush” emphasizes on the burden of carrying such dead skeletons, and the repression and suffering one might feel if the secrets are not revealed, “Katong Fugue” seeks to preserve, and the son even implicitly suggests that his mother feign ignorance to the existence of his homosexual life (revealed through pictures in the montage ). On the surface, both discuss different ideas about whether secrets should be kept or not but underlying, the themes are the same; both prevent greater hurt. As a mother, she WILL, and probably will be disappointed on finding out her son’s gay while in “Hush”, the social implications are far worse. Looking at it from a wider perspective, both films paint a grim picture about being gay and coming out in Singapore; staying in the closet can be repressive to oneself but considering the traditional take of society in general, it will do noone any good. On the other hand, there are people who are eager to know, ready to embrace but they “talk big” – after the reveal, they end up disappointed or reject altogether anyway; it is a grim view of society’s response but unfortunately, it’s something the gay community has had to deal with for a long time.
Katong Fuge - nothing more than a sparring of metaphors, similes and imagery between mother and son
Eldest children, such as this author, may feel an affinity with “Hush”, particular with Alice. She is obligated by her father to bear responsibility of her family, to be a role model, hence the harsher punishments; an unnecessary stress that my own parents have thrust upon me from a young age. Like her, I also have to deal with my sexuality – no, it’s not over, I’m out right here on my blog and you’re fine with that, thank you, BUT relationship issues, societal pressures, family… it ain’t over until I’m gone, and yes, I too, have a father who’s prone to verbal, physical and emotional abuse so “Hush” felt intensely personal to me, and my favorite of the four.
“Anniversary” tells the story of 23-year old Wai Kit who oddly becomes reluctant when his 27-year old boyfriend, Justin asks him how he would like to celebrate their first anniversary. Details slowly but gradually flush out that prior to the relationship, Wai Kit had engaged in a mass orgy and one of his partners, Jimmy recently contacted him telling that he was diagnosed with HIV following the incident and suggests Wai Kit doing the same. Wai Kit tests positive and returns to Justin with a letter, and both hug in a teary embrace. The short felt too preachy and felt like a very long public service announcement to have protected sex. Director Royston Tan does this and unlike the other shorts, the film had little layering and the characters had poor characterization, looking like caricatures rather than regular people. Directed by Royston Tan, this was most disappointing.
Orgy where guys are good-looking, great music and drugs? Sign me up! Only in Royston Tan's Anniversary.
Most people were undoubtedly present for “Tanjong Rhu”, the most well-known and critically acclaimed of them all but first, a back story…
Up till the early 90s when the internet was not widespread, with no social networks such as Fridae, Trevvy or even gay club or pubs like Play, Taboo or Locker Room, gay men frequently visited the lands of Tanjong Rhu, off the eastern coast of Singapore to hook up. Like cougars, they’d hunt alone and once one would find the ‘wrong one’, they’d copulate in the hopes that nothing would come out of it except love, laughter, peace and joy… and lotsa cum. In 1993, in an entrapment exercise, the police arrested 12 men, charged them for outrage of modesty, and sentenced them to imprisonment and caning, not before printing out their real names, ages, and particulars on the local papers. According to director Boo Junfeng, one appealed his sentence and the judge deemed the entrapment illegal, and that was the first and last ever anti-gay exercise held by the police although all had to serve their sentence.
Nick Shen bares his soul in Tanjong Rhu.
… Now that you’re up to speed, the short film is a fictionalized story based on those events. A former airforce officer seeks closure by interviewing a man (played by Mediacorp actor Nick Shen ) whom he had a brief counter in Tanjong Rhu many years ago before that man was captured. The trailer on YouTube has been cut such that it is a social commentary on the issue of acceptance and tolerance as Nick Shen in resignation asks a rhetorical question, “I don’t blame anyone. Who can I blame? This society? Those Policemen? Or the homophobes? Who am I supposed to blame?”. What makes this a flash of brilliance is that the film is not only about a homosexual man filled with guilt, almost responsible for the character’s predicament but it is a slap on the audience, particularly if the audience is heterosexual. While the 12 men captured then will never have their records erased, if YOU, as a heterosexual male or female, can feel compassion and even sympathy towards Nick Shen’s character as he narrates his life and cries his heart out onscreen, the captured’s innocence will be validated.
The Pride Collection featuring “Hush”, “Anniversary”, “Katong Fugue” and Tanjong Rhu can be seen at the Golden Village’s 3rd Love & Pride Film Festival on October 29 and November 4.
