By John Lui
THE BLUE MANSION (NC16)
107 minutes/Opens Oct 22, 2009/
Rating: 3 stars ***
The story: The death of pineapple
tycoon Wee Bak Chuan (Patrick Teoh) brings about a family reunion
at the ancestral estate, the mansion of the film's title. Elder son
Teck Liang (Lim Kay Siu) is expected to take over the business, but
Teck Meng (Adrian Pang) resents his brother's automatic assumption
of power. Pei Shan (Neo Swee Lin), their sister, feels forgotten in
a system that favours the male heir.
THIS stylish, ambitious film fills a gap in the Singapore
library: The talky, liberal-leaning criticism of social values of
the type that Hollywood releases during Oscar season, such as the
recent diary of suburban angst Revolutionary Road (2008) or any
number of features about the Iraq war or dirty politics.
In Singapore, there is no shortage of movies about working-class
Ah Bengs from more prolific film-makers such as Jack Neo, Royston
Tan and Eric Khoo. It has led some to speculate that cinema
dramatists here, for whatever reason, seem to think there are no
stories to be found in condos and bungalows. Neo, in addition, is
fond of inserting pro-status quo messages calling for wifely
loyalty and filial piety.
The real reason for this blue-collar preference, as Mansion's
large, by Singapore standards, $2.8-million production budget has
shown, is probably far more mundane. It just takes money to make
films about people with money.
Luckily, director Glen Goei has done a fine job making sure that
the budget can be seen on the screen. The movie is gorgeous. The
controlled colour palette, the high-contrast lighting, the
commissioned music, the look of the location and the wardrobe - the
production values are probably the best yet seen in an
independently financed movie written and directed by Singaporeans,
thanks largely to a top-notch crew of international
behind-thecamera talent.
With the heavy reliance on an ensemble cast composed mainly of
veteran theatre actors such as Neo Swee Lin and Lim Kay Siu, among
others, will this look like a stage production caught on camera? It
does, but only in the sense that they, along with everyone else,
are given loads of literary dialogue by scriptwriter Ken Kwek.
Otherwise, the film looks properly cinematic. There is variety
in the framing, the acting steers towards subtlety and
single-location sameness is avoided successfully.
The film mixes droll realism (as seen in the sexual inadequacies
of certain characters and the dry turns of phrase) with the
fantastic and the slapstick (for example, in the returned ghost of
the patriarch and the bumbling policemen) and never quite settles
on a tone.
The varying styles, sprawling plot and literary speech seem to
be an attempt at Shakespearean grandeur. It is easy to see Wee Bak
Chuan, the pineapple king, as a Lear-type figure, the hubristic
hero whose pride tears his family and the state apart.
There is a nice fit between the values of the latter-day Asian
mercantile class and Elizabethan-era aristocracy. It is not a
perfect fit but the film manages to sell the conceit that a father
as bullying as Wee Bak Chuan could exert such control over the
private lives of his Western-educated children.
Unfortunately, there is too much going on. One can see the film
trying hard to be both a selfcontained human drama and a metaphor
for something larger. It is hard to enjoy watching a film when one
can see it is trying to be Important with a capital I.
Despite this, the film's ambition, technical achievement and
fine acting must be recognised and it is still worth watching as a
milestone movie.
While flawed, it has set a new upper limit in independent
Singapore cinema.
