A full-length feature with many documentary elements follows eight immigrant couples in Singapore who play scenes from their lives, often shot in their small dwellings. These immigrants are the basis of Singapore's success, but get the hardest knocks when things go wrong.
A film with an unusual length and an unusual form. It's twice as long as a normal feature and made in two parts. It's not a documentary, but has many elements of one. The film follows eight couples of immigrants in today's Singapore. In this way, a lot is made clear about the political and social situation of Singapore, of which the flourishing economy is largely dependent on guest workers. Instead of interviewing the immigrants, the film maker has them play scenes from their own lives. A fiction film, but much more realistic than usual.
Another fictional element in the film is the introduction of a water crisis in Singapore. It's the immigrants who have most problems with this. For a large part, the film is set in the small dwellings where the various immigrant couples live. And also in other regards, the film maker works down to the square centimetre.
PROGRAMMER NOTES
It it can pour with rain in south-east Asia. In the rainy season - the time of the monsoon - it can rain for weeks on end. In 2005, Sherman Ong created a photo project about the time of the rains entitled 'Monsoon' (because Ong is not only a film maker but also an artist and photographer). This photo series can still be seen on his website: http://www.shermanong.com/index.php?tipo=3&codigoga=133&codigofo=#.
Ong largely took these photographs from a moving car. With the windows shut. The windows, with condensation and drops of rain, partly obscured his view, but they also form a beautiful and romantic veil for his subject The photographs especially that were taken in (half) darkness acquire an extra mysterious element as a result. It was obviously Ong's intention to involve night and missed in the pictures of his landscapes and cityscapes.
This film - that now ironically enough is about the lack of rain and water - also has several clear concepts. This time he doesn't stay in his car, but often remains in the living rooms of the people who play themselves for him. Because this is also a concept: that he works in real living rooms and with real people and not with actors. And it must also be a concept that he had a series of protagonists (from different countries) and as a result also made a longer film than usual. Ong is a man of clear ideas. As clear as water.
GjZ