QUICK’N DIRTY: LIVE FROM BERLIN
The year is 2025 and the richest of the four Asian Tigers is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its independence. The country boasts its wealth with jingoistic fervour. The future is bright, citizens are told. The landscape is replete with modern skyscrapers, the streets clinically tidy and clean, the public hospital looks like a luxury retirement home. National flags are proudly displayed across the residential buildings of the promising city-state. But not everyone is enjoying these privileges to the full.
Twenty-one-year-old Junyang (Koh Jia Ler) just finished his military service and is grappling with multiples jobs. He lives with his widowed father Boon Kiat (Andy Liam), a restaurant manager, in a tiny two-bedroom flat on a high-rise council building. They have little privacy. The crammed lounge benefits only from a small glass window directly facing the residents’ corridor. The WC is a boxed chamber sheltered only by a precarious slide door. And the small family is about to grow to five people. Juyang marries the beautiful Lydia (Regene Lim) after her deeply Catholic and controlling mother demands that they tie the knot (since he took her virginity). They soon have a baby boy called Ethan. Parallel to this, Boon marries Chinese waitress Bee Hwa (Yeo Yann Yann), known locally as “the beer auntie” (due to her alcohol-chugging abilities).
These people occasional enjoy the fleeting illusion of wealth. The two young lovers spend one romantic night in a five-star hotel with an impressive vanishing edge swimming pool and a stunning view of the city. Lydia’s mother pays for her daughter’s sumptuous wedding: the ceremony must have 20 tables, and guests dressed impeccably. Boon is a little more frugal: his wedding is held at the restaurant where he and Bee Hwa work. Nevertheless, the event has abundant food and drinks. It is when these people go back to their miniscule dwelling that reality dawns. Neither couple can afford a honeymoon, and so the nuptials must take place in the not-so-idyllic environment.
Anthony Chen’s fifth feature film is probably as close as you will ever get to social realism in Singapore. The topics are very Ken Loach-ian, even if the setting is a lot less shabby and gloomy than the Newcastle of I, Daniel Blake (2016). The system has failed these characters on many levels. The housing is precarious. Junyang tussles with the gig economy, scrambling to perform an inhumane number on deliveries on his motorbike. The disgruntled customers leave negative online reviews. Bee Hwa sees little ascension opportunities, and can never overcome the prejudice associated with being an immigrant (despite having lived in Singapore for more than 30 years). The xenophobia is palpable. Junyang chastises her: “it’s you who decided to come here”. Boon struggles to pay piling debts, carefully dodging ruthless loan sharks. Their predicament takes a turn for the worse after Junyang and Bee Hwa get involved in the deregulated sales of medication on Instagram.
Despite the continuous failings, these people still find pleasure in life. We Are All Strangers boasts joie-de-vivre. Bee Hwa works with a smile attached to her face. Junyang genuinely loves his wife and child. Boon prepares food with devoted love and attention. Crucially, this is also a movie beautiful to look at. Credit must go to cinematographer Teoh Gay Hian for turning the urban environment into a colourful space, undoubtedly aided by a very skilled colourist. Cheesy pop music also helps to lift the atmosphere. An unexpected gesture of maternal sacrifice seals the film with pain but also hope.
With a duration of more than two and a half hours, We Are All Strangers does occasionally overstay its welcome. And the plots are strangely unbalanced: Lydia’s mother inexplicably disappears from the story, and her daughter nearly faces the same fate. Nevertheless, this is a moving watch, offering unusual insight into a nation rarely associated with socioeconomic hardship.
We Are All Strangers just premiered in the Official Competition of the 76th Berlinale.
