Fridae

Written and directed by Singaporean visual artist Ho Tzu Nyen, Here was accepted for competition at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. That makes it only the second film from our island to compete at the prestigious festival after Eric Khoo’s My Magic. Yet between Ho’s debut feature and Khoo’s fifth feature, Here feels surprisingly stronger.

Slow-moving and enigmatic, it tells a strange tale of a man (John Low) who loses his ability to speak after he murders his wife. He is sent to a mental asylum called Island Hospital where he undergoes a form of psychological treatment called videocure, which requires the patient to replay crucial scenes of his life in front of a camera. But John may or may not want to be cured…

Stretching for 86 minutes but seeming much longer, Here is unlike any Singapore film we have ever seen. It has a droll script, sparse imagery and a carefully-calibrated pace that will intrigue arthouse movie lover but bore mainstream audiences.

The film begins as a satire of Singapore: The mental hospital a stand-in for the country, as it imposes certain modes of behaviors on its inhabitants. But gradually the film gives way to something more, some universal and expansive that hints at our inescapable cosmic loneliness. (We say that with the straightest face.)  Many audiences will probably walk out of the movie in frustration, but those who find themselves inexplicably drawn into the film’s strange rhythm and images may be moved by its gentle poignancy and unostentatious wisdom.