Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Last Friday afternoon, an illegal gathering of 5 people was spotted skulking around University Hall on the NUS campus with a contraband DVD of Royston Tan's controversial film 15.
Well, the film is no longer banned and has since been released after editing as R21, but I don't think playing the film on a laptop in a public space without the use of earphones is exactly something that is encouraged by the university...
My Singapore Film project group is supposed to conduct a presentation on the film next Wed, so we had to watch it last Fri. Problem was, we couldn't find an appropriate place to watch it together in school. I suggested Spinelli's at Uni Hall at first because the only time I had been there (and that was with Adnan and Chonghan for some interview by a JC Chinese magazine), the place was practically empty and so it seemed like a good place to play the DVD aloud. But come to think of it, the interview was conducted on the last day of exams a few semesters ago, so of course the place wasn't crowded, but my memory has never been the most impressive when I have a gazillion things to do. But so does everyone else, so I'm not asking to be excused... :P
Anyway, as fate would have it, the place was pretty crowded and noisy. Kevin practically lunged for the powerpoint once it was freed up but due to the lack of external speakers, we could hardly hear the film above the general chatter and clatter in the cafe. And it certainly didn't help that Royston Tan and Eric Khoo kept talking over the dialogue for at least half of the film! Sure, their comments often interacted meaningfully with the dialogue going on in the film, but hey, we're not all as sensitive and adept at multi-tasking as Mrs Ramsay to be able to absorb all simultaneous occurrences at the same time...
Fed up with people talking louder than Royston Tan and the gangsters, we went outside the cafe and contemplated sitting at a bench with powerpoints in the flower beds, but the thunder put us off the idea. We then decided to sit on a flight of steps near the side of Uni Hall where there was little traffic but no powerpoint. Almost near the end of the film, Kevin's laptop went out of battery and we had to relocate yet again! And this time, we finally ended up watching the film facing a wall with one single powerpoint in the middle of it, somewhere in the back corridor of Uni Hall. That was certainly an appropriate way of watching a film about youths living in the margins of society...
The film itself was frustratingly obscure in its high-arthouse style but quite rich for interpretation and definitely unforgettable for its controversial scenes. Now I know lip piercings have studs on the inner lip. Ouch!
But Sam (the VK one) and I have noticed something disturbing about ourselves too through the film. Our love for VK apparently extends to Singaporean Ah Beng gangsters who actually do look rather VK, maybe except that they don't put on make-up and act feminine. But they're stick-thin, have floppy hair with blond streaks, tattoos (like Kyo!) and lots of piercings! Sam kept gushing over the character Armani, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Sylvester Sim. He is definitely cute but I prefer Vynn for his glasses (I like VK guys with glasses!) and Shaun for his lip piercings (I love lip piercings even though I know they'll hurt like hell). What in the world am I talking about? I don't really know. VK makes one go crazy.
And there's definitely something wrong with me if I find the gory "Suicide Manual" animated sequence more entertaining than gross. My sis has been feeding me with too many NCH videos...
kaoru said at 8:05 AM
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