Marina Bay Sands Theatre
South, Singapore
24 August 2013
South, Singapore
24 August 2013
Merlion Wayfarer was invited to the Gala Night of ILO ILO held in the MasterCard Theatre at the Marina Bay Sands last weekend.
ILO ILO (爸妈不在家) is a 2013 Singaporean family film. The debut work of director Anthony Chen, the film features an international cast, including Singaporean actor Chen Tianwen, Malaysian actress Yeo Yann Yann and Filipino actress Angeli Bayani.
ILO ILO (爸妈不在家) is a 2013 Singaporean family film. The debut work of director Anthony Chen, the film features an international cast, including Singaporean actor Chen Tianwen, Malaysian actress Yeo Yann Yann and Filipino actress Angeli Bayani.
ILO ILO was first released at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival as part of the Directors' Fortnight on 19 May 2013. At the festival, the film was awarded the Camera d'Or award, thus becoming the first Singaporean feature film to win an award at the Cannes Film Festival.
Set in 1997 against the backdrop of the Asian Financial Crisis, it shows how the family of three coped with the financial crisis - the mother, Hwee Leng, being the administrative staff who typed out all the retrenchment letters for her company, the father, Teck, being retrenched from his salesman job, and Jiale, the primary school-going son, with his constant discipline problems. It illustrates how Teresa (or Terry, for short), the Filipino domestic helper, coped with being away from her young toddler to come to a foreign land to work, the discrimination she faces as a maid, and about her efforts to moonlight to earn extra cash. It ended with the family having to give up their recently-employed domestic helper due to a lack of financial resources. On a social level, the film highlights a challenge many nuclear families face - both parents having to work to make ends meet, a latchkey child with behavioural challenges, leaving childcare to a stranger, and dealing with the close emotional bond between "Aunty" and Ah Boy.
Although ILO ILO was supposed to be an adapted snapshot of a period in Anthony Chen's life, Merlion Wayfarer finds the pace of the movie a tad slow. She is also not comfortable with some of the scenes in the movie, e.g. Jiale picking up and actually smoking Teck's cigarettes, the close physical relationship between the maid and a primary school boy, Jiale hurting himself to implicate the discipline master, a suicide case with little relevance to the plot (only the scars on Terry's wrists were shown but not elaborated on), a scene in the bathroom with Jiale spraying water on Terry who was wearing a thin loose-fitting T-shirt. The abrupt ending also left several movie-goers in the gala premiere stunned.
Although ILO ILO was supposed to be an adapted snapshot of a period in Anthony Chen's life, Merlion Wayfarer finds the pace of the movie a tad slow. She is also not comfortable with some of the scenes in the movie, e.g. Jiale picking up and actually smoking Teck's cigarettes, the close physical relationship between the maid and a primary school boy, Jiale hurting himself to implicate the discipline master, a suicide case with little relevance to the plot (only the scars on Terry's wrists were shown but not elaborated on), a scene in the bathroom with Jiale spraying water on Terry who was wearing a thin loose-fitting T-shirt. The abrupt ending also left several movie-goers in the gala premiere stunned.
| About The Gala Night |
More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer's Picasa at :
Entertainment - Movies
More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer's Picasa at :
Entertainment - Movies
