Singapore Redux

If you can't name a Singaporean film of the 1970s and '80s, it's because hardly any were made. The city-state's movie industry still hadn't recovered from the once dominant Shaw Brothers and Cathay studios' decision to relocate almost all production to Hong Kong decades earlier. Only in the mid-1990s did a new generation of filmmakers — taking advantage of new technology and lower production costs — take up cameras again. Among them was Eric Khoo, whose 1995 debut Mee Pok Man told of the tormented relationship between a noodle cook and a prostitute, and inaugurated a new wave of films that have pleasantly surprised audiences and critics alike. These days, Singaporean film relishes the themes of alienation, sexuality and dysfunctionality, challenging viewers to see beyond the city-state's straitlaced stereotypes, and exploiting to the full a more relaxed attitude among Singapore's censors. TIME's LIAM FITZPATRICK spoke to Khoo (whose latest feature, My Magic, has just been accepted into the main competition at Cannes), as well as to Ekachai Uekrongtham (the only other Singaporean director to have shown at Cannes) and one of the city-state's most promising young directors, Brian Gothong Tan.

TIME: Does art develop well in conditions of perfect freedom, or does it need something to kick against?
ERIC KHOO: I think that in order to tell a story and maybe even tell it better, it's sometimes to your advantage if there are going to be restrictions ... You have to think even harder as a storyteller.
EKACHAI UEKRONGTHAM: From an artist's point of view it's always good to have no censorship, but in the real world that doesn't happen anywhere. There's some kind of censorship always — if not by the state, then by the society.
BRIAN GOTHONG TAN: The suppression in Singapore and Asia in general works for me. It's one of the reasons why, after I graduated from L.A., I moved back to Singapore — because for me art is always about pushing boundaries or testing the limits and making people see things differently. It's actually fuel for my creativity.
UEKRONGTHAM: As artists, we're used to what we call "out of bounds" markers and tend to work around them. If you want to talk about something political, you need to come up with a script that deals with it allegorically as opposed to just confronting it.

Nonetheless, things are loosening up, aren't they?
KHOO: I started doing short films back in 1989, and I can feel the change. A lot of the stuff that I couldn't get away with back then, we can get away with now. I think that they do want the population to be more creative and self-expressive. That's basically it.
UEKRONGTHAM: Part of that relaxation could also be economically driven, because the government has expressly said that it wants to increase the GDP from the media sector by a certain percentage, and part of that is that they need to be seen as allowing freedom and creativity.
TAN: Yeah, Singapore is quite uptight in some senses. But I think the government is realizing that. Education has a lot to do with that as well — the kids of this generation are so in touch with everything. With the Internet and all that, it's so easy for them to get information at their fingertips.

Does social and political conservatism explain the dearth of Singaporean film before the 1990s?
KHOO: No, basically we had a very thriving film industry. But when Sir Run Run Shaw left for Hong Kong and [influential Malaysian actor and director] P. Ramlee went back to Malaysia, things changed. If you think of movies produced back in the '50s, the budgets were, like, up to a million, and they were huge in Southeast Asia.
UEKRONGTHAM: It's not so much about social control but trying to focus on economic progress. And maybe now is the time when they can focus on creating a film industry. You must remember that in an earlier age people were busy doing other things. Now we realize that we can make money from the creative side as well.
KHOO: But it's still difficult. Look at South Korea — they've got a population of 40 million and their films can domestically gross $80 million. That's huge. With our films, we try hard to make sure they make a bit of money, and we have been very fortunate in that the last couple of films have traveled outside of Singapore. The last film I directed, Be With Me, showed for a year in France — but in Singapore it showed for maybe two and a half weeks. That's the reality.

While finding a big audience may be tough, actually breaking into the industry is easier, isn't it?
KHOO: Because of technology, everything has changed. Anyone can be a filmmaker. All of our last three films were shot in high-definition video. It allows you to have more creative freedom. Some filmmakers would say you have to spend a certain amount of money in order for a film to go to a certain film festival. I disagree with that. It's really the conceptualization of an idea and how you execute that idea. You can do a film for $60,000 and still go and run that extra mile. It's all about expression.

Speaking of festivals, how did last month's Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF) leave you feeling about the state of local moviemaking?
TAN: Their films are really good. There's a new wave there.
UEKRONGTHAM: Suddenly we have a Singapore Panorama section [of local features].
KHOO: If you look at the short-film competition, which started about 12 years ago, there were very few entries then, but now they get over 100. There are all these polytechnics having film courses. I've noticed this whole change in how many young Singaporeans that want to be filmmakers want to direct. My last feature, My Magic, was basically filmed by students from LaSalle [College of the Arts]. I mean, of course, when you read what they write, their experiences in life are limited. But when you see them in terms of the technical know-how, they are much more superior.

So there's this whole army of filmmakers with a lack of life experience but with technical skills.
TAN: It is quite an intriguing combination. Exposure to life is really important. That is the problem in Singapore. There is so much social control. It starts with education, the way we are groomed as citizens. We are taught to follow rules all the time and it is really hard to see out of that box. For me, I am lucky because I was born outside of Singapore, so I can see the box really clearly. As an artist, I don't have to conform. But a lot of my friends don't see the box. I have a lot of friends who were artists with me back in my secondary school days, and they are all doctors, engineers and teachers. A lot of them have become bankers and stuff like that, giving up their dreams. It's quite sad, actually, when I know some of them are quite talented.

But among those who are genuinely interested in film, is there a greater sense of community now?
KHOO: What the SIFF has done is create a sophisticated audience, one that can embrace more than just commercial cinema. When you look at Singapore, one thing I think we can pride ourselves on is the independent distributors that we have, and the amount of films that come through now, whether they be Iranian, French, German, from Hong Kong, or Korean.
UEKRONGTHAM: Whenever I'm away, I can come back and get my art-house fix. You are spoiled for choice here. I can watch three or four films a day.
KHOO: I think that if we didn't have the SIFF, film appreciation would be on the level of Hollywood movies, chopsockies and that's it. But now I feel that we have arrived at an exciting time, and there are going to be a lot more exciting films coming out of Singapore.