Tag: Jo Tan

Amoeba (Siyou Tan, 2025)

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Choo (Ranice Tay) wonders what it’s like to be the Merlion. Being made to stand there while everyone makes up stories about you, like you’re trapped in an aquarium and can only look out on the world. In an odd way, it reflects her own experience as an “ungovernable” young woman contending with an authoritarian culture led by entrenched patriarchy as mediated through her overly strict elite girls high school which is intent on producing “respectful daughters and students of virtue”.

The fact that Choo doesn’t quite it in here is signalled on her very first day in which she’s humiliatingly forced to drag her own desk from one classroom to another as a result of some sort of clerical error. A stern-looking teacher measures the diameter of the face on her wristwatch, decides it’s too large and, therefore, too masculine, and takes it away from her. They measure the length of her skirt above her knee and say it’s too short, while her hair is too long. Or rather, the style is wrong and she should make sure it doesn’t touch her collar by the following Monday. The teacher even pulls at her shirt as if she were about to tear it off to confirm the colour of her bra, though it is in no way visible and therefore presumably makes no real difference anyway.

Above the whiteboard in their classroom, there’s a sign reading “purity, moral uprightness, diligence, and filial piety,” all qualities Choo derides during her speech having been entered as a candidate to become class monitor against her will. She ends up ironically being made “Good Citizen” representative instead by her teacher, Mrs Lim, who takes an instant dislike to her and seems to regard Choo as a potential source of resistance. On the one level, the girls are all being encouraged to become proper young women and as Choo says despite her very feminine name, it doesn’t really suit her. Later, she becomes friends with another group of girls who ironically describe themselves as a “gang”, having realised the great figures they learn about in school and have streets named after them made their money peddling opium, only to be accused of actively participating in organised crime when their teacher finds a video of them dancing around to a street music video featuring a guy with tattoos and having fun in one of the girl’s bedrooms.

Choo and her friend Nessa (Nicole Lee Wen) had been worried about the video for another reason, that even though as Choo says they “technically didn’t actually do anything,” the video she shot of them messing around while trying to catch the ghost in her room could cause each of them a lot of trouble in the extremely conservative country where homosexuality was only decriminalised in 2022. In any case, the teacher doesn’t seem to pay any attention to that part of the video, which comes as a relief to both of them even if it’s made them guarded and awkward in the way they interact with each other. Nessa wants to quit swimming and try football instead, but doesn’t necessarily feel she has the freedom to make that decision and is fearful of its implications. “Can’t sleep, cannot eat, cannot freaking pee, can’t do anything,” another of the girls laments. “We can’t even study what we want.”

But having banded together over their shared sense of alienation, Choo’s friends are also separated by their socio-economic disparities. They mainly hang out at the house of the richest girl, Sofia (Lim Shi-An), whose father is a construction magnate. After deciding they all want to go to the same junior college, they struggle to agree on a destination as Sofia has her sights set on an elite institution the other girls think is out of their league given their current academic performance. Though she agrees to go to a less prestigious school with them, in reality Sofia can’t let go of her privilege or the expectation that goes with it and has secretly applied to the other school while trying to cajole the other girls to apply there too. Later it transpires that she’s already been given the answers to the exam questions by the tutor her wealthy mother hired, so there was never any doubt of her getting in because her money will always open doors. She shares the answers with the other girls to parrot back during in their oral which involves describing a picture of the iconic seafront to which the only “correct” answers are that the Merlion represents prosperity and national identity. Choo gives this answer too, but only to subvert it in asking what the point of this test is if they’re just supposed to give the “correct” answer while making it clear that she won’t go along with this charade even if it might be advantageous for her to do so.

The girls had taken refuge in a cave on the land being developed by Sofia’s father and created their own secret den, but when it’s taken down, erasing their history in the name of progress, it’s like they’re losing their last safe space where they can embrace these subversive thoughts and express their sense of frustration with the authoritarian culture around them as corporate forces seek to bury and obfuscate the past. Choo wonders how they can escape this “aquarium” and see a future for themselves when their history is constantly being revised and repackaged to reflect a certain ideology and they’re given so little freedom to think for themselves or to be who they really are in the culture where conformity is king. Yet though her camera and friendships, Choo does seem to have discovered a way to go on seeing, and speaking, the truth even if everyone else is content to ignore it.

Amoeba had its world premiere as part of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

Trailer (English subtitles)

#LookAtMe (Ken Kwek, 2022)

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The unequal authoritarianism of contemporary Singapore conspires against an aspiring YouTuber in Ken Kwek’s surreal drama #LookatMe. Opening with a title card explaining that 2015 prominent activists have jailed for breaking arbitrary laws relating to obscenity and illegal assembly, the film throws its progressive hero into a kafkaesque quest for justice after he’s arrested for publishing a video mocking a homophobic religious figure simultaneously asking why it’s alright for a pastor to spout hate speech but illegal to challenge him and pitting the hero’s desire for fame against that for genuine social change. 

Sean (Yao) does indeed want fame, running an unsuccessful YouTube channel while alternating between mocking more successful stars and emulating them by playing cruel pranks on his understanding mother in the hope of going viral. His life changes when his girlfriend Mia (Shu Yi Ching), whose parents are religious, invites him, and his gay twin brother Ricky (also Yao), to attend an evening service at her church in an attempt to curry favour. The church turns out to be of the evangelical variety, opening with a Christian rock performance before showman pastor Josiah (Adrian Pang) arrives on stage and embarks on a homophobic rant insisting that he has no problem with gay people but is dead against them overturning Singapore’s colonial era law criminalising homosexual sex. Ricky is obviously upset, unsure why Mia whom he assumed to be progressive would have invited him to such an event, and leaves abruptly upsetting Mia’s father in the process. 

Sean is so outraged by the whole thing that after noticing that Josiah gets a lot more hits than he does with his hate speech, he makes a video mocking his messaging and satirically accusing him of bestiality which eventually goes viral but also gets him arrested after the church’s many followers ring the local police en masse. Sean can’t understand why he’s in trouble with the law for publicly insulting a religious leader while Pastor Josiah is seemingly free to spread dangerous and hateful ideas with no fear of challenge or dissent. Banned from social media, he’s picked up again for making an apology video and is then eventually sent to prison for 18 months while facing a defamation trial in his absence. 

Even his new cellmates can’t quite believe he’s been put away for something as ridiculous as a YouTube video yet his plight exemplifies the authoritarianism of the contemporary society in which there is no guarantee of free speech nor safe path to protesting injustice. Ricky is later arrested too for “illegal assembly” when he and three friends hold up a banner protesting the case because four people outside together is apparently prohibited by law. As he points out, how are you supposed to hold up a giant banner with only three people? Sean tried to stand up for Ricky, and Ricky does the same for Sean deciding to come completely out of the closet as an LGBTQ+ activist with the support of their mother Nancy (Pam Oei) as they fight for justice but then faces random violence on the streets from homophobic vigilantes while she is later fired from the primary school where she works after refusing to sign an apology or renounce her political views. 

The film takes aim at social hypocrisy as Sean is sexually abused by the prison warden while inside, and the pastor seeks to preserve his business interests calmly telling Nancy that he bears her no grudge but won’t drop his defamation suit because he has to protect the Church from similar forms of attack. He says this while lounging around on his yacht while servants bring him drinks, clearly incredibly wealthy from the proceeds of his religious life which whichever way you look at it is not a good look. In any case the film’s ironic conclusion which vindicates Sean and the place of video in social protest cannot but seem a little flippant in its implications which reduce the pastor to the position of hypocritical villain while Ricky’s conversion to Christianity feels like too much of a concession even if making clear that it is not religiosity that is being demonised only those like Josiah who would seek to profit from hate and repression. Nevertheless, Kwek presents an alternately heartwarming and harrowing vision of a close family torn apart by outdated and irrational laws and in the end left only with violence as a potential motivator for change. 

#LookAtMe screened as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

NYAFF trailer (English subtitles)

Tiong Bahru Social Club (中峇鲁俱乐部, Tan Bee Thiam, 2020)

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“How can you simply approve all these claims, we can’t make everyone who complains happy!” the hero of Tan Bee Thiam’s surreal happiness satire Tiong Bahru Social Club (中峇鲁俱乐部) is admonished by his boss, a claim he will ironically later discover to be truer than he knows. It’s certainly true that the modern world has become somewhat complicated, but do you really need an algorithm to teach you how to be happy or more to the point can you truly feel “happiness” without a computer readout validating your feelings? That’s a question which only belatedly occurs to young Bee (Thomas Pang) when he takes a job at strange new social program aiming to create the happiest neighbourhood in the world but also sinisterly insisting that “everyone’s happiness is our business”, which it quite literally is. 

The Tiong Bahru Social Club is marketed partly as a retirement community set in the famous 1920s art deco colonial district. Promising to “put the unity back in community” they aim to foster an old fashioned village spirit. The reason Bee has decided to work for them, partly at the behest of his widowed mother with whom he still lives, is that he’s just turned 30 and needs to think of the future. The Social Club offers a speedy career track, high pay, and good benefits including food and accommodation which make it a much more promising option than his old job at the laundry even though he likes the sense of order and progress he feels listening to the predictable rhythm of the machines. Asked for a loyalty card at a supermarket checkout he proudly declares that he has “no passion” yet as his mother reminds him even as a little boy he was the type who just wanted everyone to be happy even if he ended up hurt. 

Such a temperament might make him an ideal recruit, as the algorithm seems to believe, but Bee is ill-prepared for the bizarre uncanniness of the cult-like Tiong Bahru society in which he’s guided by an AI assistant and asked to wear a ring which measures his happiness level and positive impact on others. His first assignment is looking after a grumpy old woman who, on the surface at least, isn’t really invested in the Happiness Movement and claims she’s only in it for the freebies. The problem may be, however, that Ms. Wee (Jalyn Han) is already in a sense “happy” in that she no longer cares very much about what other people think and is completely comfortable in herself if perhaps lonely and missing the various cats of her life, eventually enlisting Bee to steal one from the guy running a cat tours stand who later gets fired for not generating enough happiness. The other obvious problem with the Social Club is that, as an old-fashioned, iconic building it hasn’t been very well adapted for those using wheelchairs or experiencing problems with mobility, both factors which might make it more difficult for their elderly residents to feel “happy”. Meanwhile, Bee’s own happiness rating is adversely affected by the nature of the program kept in a constant state of anxiety that he might be for the chop if he doesn’t spread enough joy. 

In a slice of irony, Bee’s mother remains behind alone in the Pearl Bank building, a landmark of ‘70s high rise architecture now in a state of disrepair and the subject of a possible block buy by developers who presumably intend to tear it down (the real building was indeed demolished in March 2020 with a new high rise pending). The older residents mainly want to sell while the younger insist the building should be preserved for its historical value while feeling the loss of their community. As his AI assistant Bravo 60 tells him, Bee is now “successful” in that, having gained a promotion, he’s found his place in the community, is living in a nice apartment with a “perfectly matched partner” (selected for him via the algorithm), and has a job that gives him purpose but Bee doesn’t feel like he “deserves” it. If it’s all already decided, by the stars or by an algorithm then what’s the point? All he sees is emptiness. His life is micromanaged to an infinite degree, even given a diagram explaining how to make love to his new girlfriend in the way that generates the most happiness while his boss (and Bravo 60) look on in judgement from above. 

Yet, it’s emptiness that Bee eventually comes to appreciate as the force which in its own way gives his life meaning. Gradually disillusioned with the Social Club in which “happiness” is a matter of cynical manipulation he opts for something a little less neat in which happiness is no one’s business but his own, the slow and steady march of the Happiness Movement not withstanding. Featuring fantastic production design by A Land Imagined’s James Page filled with retro neon along with the cutesy heightened pastel colour scheme with its mix of calming yellows and the very ‘80s pink and blue, Tan’s quirky exploration of the fallacy of the “happiness index” subtly critiques the contemporary society along with an empty authoritarianism, subversively undercutting a socially conservative culture in the inclusion of two smiling, waving men on their balcony as Bee is reminded of his “perfectly matched partner”. Happiness is not a matter of order or design but perhaps there might be something in that sense of “community” if fostered by genuine fellow feeling and compassion rather than a system of penalty and reward brokered by “social credit”. 

Tiong Bahru Social Club screened as part of the 2021 Osaka Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (English / Simplified Chinese subtitles)