Innocents
Innocents
Singapore, 2012, colour, 2.35:1, 89 mins.
Director: Wang Chenxi 王晨曦 [Wong Chen-hsi].
Rating: 5/10.
Notable debut centred on a friendship between two lonely kids is over-stretched.
STORY
Singapore, the 1980s, monsoon season. With her parents getting divorced, Syafiqah (Nameera Ashley), 11, has been sent to live with her grandmother (Nurijah Sahat). As a transfer student at a new school, she has no friends; gradually, however, she starts spending time with classmate Ah Huat (Cai Chengyue), a scruffy loner who’s always late for class. Ah Huat shows Syafiqah his “special place”, a deserted, woody spot by a longkang (storm drain), where one day they find a dead body. Ah Huat introduces her to his younger sister Wei (Norhanisah), who is retarded and whom he has to take care of, as his father (Lim Poh Huat) is always drunk. Syafiqah starts skipping school to spend time with them and the three plan a secret train trip to Kelantan, in Malaysia. At the last moment, however, Syafiqah ducks out. Following another argument with their teacher, Miss Tan (Winnie Chu), Ah Huat is expelled from class and goes missing. And then the monsoon rains arrive.
REVIEW
A modest but notable feature debut by Singapore-based writer-director Wang Chenxi 王晨曦 [Wong Chen-hsi], Innocents is a controlled exercise in atmosphere and feelings that simply spreads its thin material too far. Wang, 35, who spent 12 years in the US before returning to Singapore in 2007, describes the film as a “tone-poem” – which correctly sums up its fragile, timeless depiction of a friendship between two loner tweenies – but makes the mistake of stretching a 30-45 minute format to symphonic feature-film length. Thanks to excellent widescreen photography by US d.p. Joseph White (Mother’s Day, 2010, plus many horrors), and a soundtrack that highlights the sounds of nature during outdoor and monsoon scenes, the movie just about keeps afloat; but there’s a sense of diminishing returns and lost opportunities which could have been overcome by a more developed screenplay and by dialogue that is more natural and less arch.
As the young Malay girl who’s sent to live with her grandmother and becomes a transfer student at a new school, Nameera Ashley is quite a find, sketching the 11-year-old’s loneliness and quiet rebelliousness with a refreshing lack of artifice. Cai Chengyue 蔡诚岳 is a good fit as the young Chinese kid she befriends, a kind of half-wild child whose bolshy exterior masks a devotion to his retarded younger sister. Though set in the 1980s (according to the film’s production notes), the film is deliberately vague on specific details like the setting and even the kids’ family backgrounds, with director Wang just dropping small hints here and there. Her main intention seems to be to draw the children’s own “secret place” of feelings, detached from adult realities, and in this she’s pretty successful. But at 90 minutes an audience can rightfully expect a bit more than just extended mood-painting and long walks by rural storm drains.
CREDITS
Presented by Analog Robot (SG).
Script: Wang Chenxi [Wong Chen-hsi]. Photography: Joseph White. Editing: Jeffrey McMahon. Music: He Guotai [Rich Ho]. Art direction: Liu Fengmeng. Costumes: Huang Liling [Wee Li Lin]. Sound: Luo Lishan, Lillian Wang, Vincent Tang.
Cast: Nameera Ashley (Syafiqah), Cai Chengyue (Lim Ah Huat), Norhanisah (Wei, Lim Ah Huat’s younger sister), Winnie Chu (Miss Tan, teacher), Nurijah Sahat (Syafiqah’s grandmother), Lim Poh Huat (Lim Ah Huat’s father).
Premiere: Rome Film Festival (Alice Nella Città, Competition), 14 Nov 2012.
Release: Singapore, 26 Sep 2013.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 21 Nov 2012.)