G-23, a film by Antony Chen1

I first saw G-23 at the begin­ning of my first year in FSV. Much hype had pre­ceded it and I enthu­si­as­ti­cally watched it with a few friends of mine inside of a Ngee Ann the­atre. When it was all over I was met with numer­ous com­ments all pos­i­tive say­ing : “Wow that was good” and “Excellent.” Sitting down and watch­ing this by myself sev­eral months later I still won­der to myself. Do peo­ple imme­di­ately praise this movie just based on the fact it has won many awards? Or the hype Ngee Ann has placed around it as well as Anthony Chen skills? Staged in a tamil movie the­atre in Woodlands , our seem­ingly main pro­tag­o­nist ( sim­ply dubbed ‘ticket tearer’) observes numer­ous char­ac­ters from a sin­gu­lar seat in the cin­ema ( seat G-23 no less). Three peo­ple all con­nected in some way by this seat, all hav­ing their own prob­lems and con­flicts along the way. This three pronged nar­ra­tive cycle ticks for­ward dur­ing the course of the movie and we see these three char­ac­ters in a few ways. One thing that stood out for me and that I was impressed with was its impec­ca­ble light­ing and cin­e­matog­ra­phy . The long drawn out shad­ows of the cin­ema cre­ated an ambiance to set the stage for the nar­ra­tive as well as the inte­ri­ors of all the char­ac­ters respec­tive homes. The cin­ema itself emit­ted an almost labyrinth like appeal due to this – spin­ning rays of light across the screen and really cre­at­ing some­thing more than just a loca­tion. For our sexually-charged frus­trated mid­dle aged woman we are greeted with a slightly over sat­u­rated scene – with over exposed whites; glar­ing and bright. In the case of the old man we see him through a veil of pale colours – desat­u­rated in many ways per­haps empha­siz­ing the soli­tude he feels. For the young Indian girl close-ups and over­pow­er­ing ambiance sound is present – per­haps to dis­tract and dis­tort and to give us an inkling into the prob­lem this trou­bled youth is fac­ing. I felt it added to the whole feel of the film which was in essence to rep­re­sent these char­ac­ters in many dif­fer­ent ways. The scene that I found most mem­o­rable though was our old man chas­ing a lonely cock­roach around his flat. It was mem­o­rable, funny and in a way sad as well – bring­ing a range of emo­tions that was inter­est­ing for just one scene devoid of dia­logue. What I found equally inter­est­ing was the fact I could relate to the char­ac­ter of our trou­bled Indian Girl. Was this the aim for Anthony? To give a range of char­ac­ters and prob­lems so that we might , in turn, relate these prob­lems in some way with our own lives? After all we all long for some­things we don’t usu­ally get for find trou­ble in achiev­ing. This stood out the most for me. G-23’s abil­ity to relate to the audi­ence in some way or another . I recently wrote in another forum about “What is Cinema?” In my opin­ion it is in this very pow­er­ful qual­ity of rela­tion. If I relate to one of the char­ac­ter on screen, I can see myself in their shoes and thus take some­thing home with me once the film is over. How did they over­come their tri­als and tribu­la­tions? Did I really do that or was I really that unfair? Questions like these evolve from this rela­tion after the movie is over and I felt that G-23’s abil­ity to relate was its best and most defin­ing fea­ture. Reviewed by Kane Wheatley-Holder