Singapore Gaga

I watched Singapore Gaga at the Substation today. For the uninitiated, Singapore Gaga is a 55 min documentary by local film-maker Tan Pin Pin. The documentary contains snippets of authentic Singapore life that if not captured on film, would hardly be noticed by the average Singaporean. The film features interesting people like the wheelchair bound woman who sings her "buy my tissue paper" Hokkien song, the old man Ying who thinks he's a "national treasure" and performs a harmonica act accompanied with one-hand juggling and clog stomping in MRT stations and Margaret Leng Tan, a Singaporean who's moved to New York and does absolutely nothing for four minutes or so as part of her performance onstage.

Singapore Gaga is just excellent. Tan is really clever at putting little snippets together in just the right way to say something about society: Singaporeans' indifference towards buskers, handicapped or not, the lack of freedom to perform as a busker (Ying was seized and apparently ill-treated by police) and the government's irreversible stance with regards to the dialect policy. As I watched the film, I was both delighted by the authentically Singaporean scenes as well as the undertones that Tan had subtly inserted. The film also has a fair bit of humorous moments. You have to watch it!

Sadly, local good quality films like Tan's rarely get their day in the cinema. I was talking to the marketing guy from Substation who said it's not commercially viable to show such films in the cinemas. How can these films get the exposure they need then? Most Singaporeans aim for the Hollywood blockbusters and can't be bothered to check out lesser known documentaries. So films like Tan's are only seen by a niche group of people--those who are already interested in the arts and who actively seek out what's happening in the arts scene. Singapore Gaga was quite poorly publicised, despite the fact that it has been invited to the Rotterdam International Film Festival and enjoyed a fair bit of attention in the foreign press. Why has it not received the same fame back home? According to the Substation, they did try to market the film to the local newspapers, but only The New Paper and the Straits Times picked it up and even then, Sunday Lifestyle made very brief mention of the film without stating how to get tickets and when it was showing. If the local media and cinema operators do not give the necessary support to such local films, how is the Singapore film industry going to develop? Whether it's commercially viable or not, cinema operators should do something to promote local films. I'm sure they can afford it especially after the recent increase in ticket prices (damn the money suckers!). I'm still waiting for Singapore Gaga to make it to the big screen. The Substation says they're trying to push for it. I hope it won't take too long.

For more information on Singapore Gaga, check out www.singaporegaga.com