Singapore Dreaming (2006)0

What makes a Singaporean film, Singaporean? The fact that a Singaporean made it? Or because the film was shot in Singapore? Maybe the col­lo­quial ‘Wa Laus’, ‘Lors’ and ‘Lars’ that are present in the film play a part? Singapore Dreaming is a local film by husband-and-wife film­mak­ing team, Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen. The film was opened in Singapore towards the end of 2006 and was inher­ently touted as one of the most affec­tive and accu­rate pic­tures of the Singaporean com­mu­nity. The pub­lic­ity mate­ri­als of the film even boasts a short review by President S.R Nathan, President of Singapore, that Singapore Dreaming rep­re­sented ‘Life in its real­ity’. So, is Singapore Dreaming a truly Singaporean Film? As I thought about these words, I came to one under­stand­ing. It is true that the film was one that stood out and was in its unique way dif­fer­ent from the many Singaporean movies that have existed. For one, they had a quote from President Nathan… alright, but on a deeper level, I feel that Singapore Dreaming is a film that rep­re­sents the Singaporean Voice most accu­rately. The sin­cer­ity in which the direc­tors por­trayed in want­ing to com­ment on the Singaporean Culture was prob­a­bly one of the key rea­sons why the film was rather effec­tive and affec­tive to many. According to the film­mak­ers, the film was first inspired and con­cep­tu­alised by an essay they wrote for the Singapore International Foundation, with its con­tents about how the ‘Singaporean Dream’ was slowly turn­ing into the ‘Singaporean Plan’ instead. According to Colin, the duo felt that the “dream which every­one shares about attain­ing per­sonal ful­fil­ment, has been trans­formed into the Singapore Plan, with pre­scribed steps of what kind of school you should go to, what degree you should get, what career you should pur­sue, maybe even who you should marry”. Fuelled by the heart warm­ing responses of many in Singapore who felt the same way and came for­ward to share their own per­sonal lives, the cou­ple decided to make a film based on these sto­ries which they received. I am also glad that Singapore Dreaming was not at all restric­tive and self-censored in dis­play­ing an accu­rate side (although this may mean a side which most of us are not proud of) of the Singaporean Society, in order to bring these sto­ries to life. Singapore Dreaming is a satire of the obses­sions of the middle-class Singaporean, told through a quin­tes­sen­tially mel­low approach. When com­pared to films by Jack Neo, who is also an active ‘com­men­ta­tor’ about the Singaporean Society in his films, Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen has achieved a much mature approach in dis­cussing Singaporean issues. The humour writ­ten in Singapore Dreaming is far from the clichéd ‘slap­stick’ humour gen­er­ated from the quirky and some­times unnat­ural act­ing by the actors in Jack Neo’s movies. The humour in Singapore Dreaming is instead a more intel­lec­tual one. For exam­ple, the com­mu­ni­ca­tion gaps between the mother and the father, seen through one of the scenes where the father asks for the mother to mock up a quick club inter­view, is done taste­fully. Due to her igno­rance and Chinese back­ground, the first thing the mother asks is ‘Have you eaten?’, which is some­thing accu­rate to how the local Chinese gen­er­ally greet each other. In my opin­ion, using humour with a local con­text is a good approach to writ­ing this film and in tack­ling the pre­sen­ta­tion of the local char­ac­ter­is­tics of our com­mu­nity. The film also intro­duces a typ­i­cal Singaporean Family and how the indi­vid­ual mem­bers relate to each other. The fam­ily dynam­ics por­trayed in the film is one that can be eas­ily related to. In the case of this film, we have char­ac­ters like the patient ‘mother’, who patiently picks up after the fam­ily with­out com­plains, the ‘father’, that demands respect and author­ity in the fam­ily (even when his chil­dren are old enough to start a fam­ily of their own), the favored and spoilt child of the fam­ily (usu­ally a boy) and the daugh­ter who suf­fers silently with the issue of bias­ness. In my opin­ion, these are the char­ac­ters which many in Singapore would eas­ily relate to as they are all so applic­a­ble, even to their rel­a­tives and friends. These per­son­al­i­ties were also well explored and devel­oped through each of their reac­tions to Seng’s (Dick Su) return from Idaho, where he appar­ently went to study in. From this small event, we could see the Mother clear­ing up the family’s mess to pre­pare for her son’s return, the father try­ing to exude author­ity by con­stantly announc­ing, ‘I have brought up such a suc­cess­ful son’ and the daugh­ter who is mildly bit­ter from the oppor­tu­nity that Seng was given. This is of course achieved through proper story devel­op­ment by the Colin and Yen Yen. I have always believed that the true nature of men, and in par­tic­u­lar the true Singaporean nature, will sur­face when a con­flict or a dras­tic event is forced onto the indi­vid­u­als. In my opin­ion there­fore, Colin and Yen Yen’s deci­sion to inflict the father’s death in the story and their act of bring­ing up the poten­tial lost of finan­cial sta­bil­ity in the fam­ily, helped to dis­play and explore what the Singaporean voice is like. It was also a spot-on for me that the issue was very much because of finan­cial prob­lems as ‘money’ is some­thing I feel, which is close to many Singaporeans’ heart. The strug­gle for the son to sus­tain his spend­ing habits and the sib­ling rivalry that occurs due to the con­flict over who should get what por­tion of the father’s assets is indeed a famil­iar story for many in Singapore. This has allowed for the film to explore how Singaporeans would react in fam­ily related sit­u­a­tions and how things are solved. If there was a Singapore New Wave, maybe our films can be dis­tin­guished by the true Singaporean voice present in it, a voice that would shout to the world about our Singaporean lives, our Singaporean fam­i­lies or maybe just sim­ply, us, Singaporeans. What makes a Singaporean film a truly Singaporean one? It might just be the fact that our voices can be dis­tin­guished and heard in the par­tic­u­lar film, and I think that Singapore Dreaming par­tic­u­larly, is a great rep­re­sen­ta­tion of this. This review was writ­ten by Josiah Ng. We can’t find his details right now. So if you want to con­tact him, go make your­self a cup of joe.