Be with Me

I watched this movie today on DVD. There are several touching stories, I felt I could relate to all the characters quite easily. I was happy to see that it was a "different kind" of teenage love story, the old man's face I could look at forever, so sympathetic it was, and the story of Theresa Chan was uplifting, how could it not be.

I admit there were a few moments where the movie seemed not so strong but by the end of it I found that I really did appreciate the unconventional way of telling a story that this movie provides. That most of the story is told through images or subtitles and without dialogue is refreshing and reminds us that there are several ways to make a good movie. The ending alone is beautiful and sums up the entire film for me. I specifically went into Videodrom not wanting to rent a Hollywood film and I happily did not get one. This is a special movie, forget being critical about the techniques, be carried away by the story.

This Singaporean movie consist of 3 different stories, but there's a moment when the stories be connected (4 example like Love Actually). The ultimate story is "Meant To Be", a--narrative biographical--story about Theresa Chan, a single almost old lady who is deaf and blind. She conditionally made relation with an old cooker-man who is miserable since the death of her wive. The second, "Finding Love" is about a fat security guard who adore an elegant woman and try to get her. "So in Love", the 3rd one is about love story between 2 girls (lesbian), Jackie and Sam. The idea of the stories are so realistic and touching.I'm an Asian too, and have to admit that this is one of the greatest modern Singapore movie. This movie is lack of luxurious miser en scene or montage, contrary, it's so smooth and soft with it's minimum dialog between the characters and melancholic original score, and sentimental cinematography, make this movie so sacred and live.

I had heard mixed things about "Be With Me"...The critics, with whom I never agree, loved the film....Several of my friends, whose opinions I value, called it "pretentious".

I usually HATE movies like "Be With Me"....I hate pretentious movies, I hate slow movies, and I REALLY HATE movies with very little dialogue....

Well, "Be With Me" is slightly pretentious, very slow and has very little dialogue. It's not perfect and for the first fifteen minutes I was wondering exactly where the director was going....But it all comes together, and it ends up being a very sad, very inspiring, very relateable movie! I'd never heard of Theresa Chan, an amazing Singaporean woman who after being becoming deaf and blind at age 14, managed to learn English, write a series of books, travel the world and do a lot of volunteer/charity work....and now star in a movie! Her story really makes you want to do something with your life. Obviously, it's hard to make an "exciting" movie about a woman who obviously has a great deal of trouble speaking, but her story was very interesting (and is mostly told in subtitles)....She's definitely a woman who puts the rest of us to shame.

As a side-note, I would like to note that in my home country, the USA, there is a sizable minority of immigrants who live there for twenty years, and still cannot speak any English. In the country where I now live (Thailand), the majority of foreign residents (including many Americans) do not make any effort to learn Thai. And yet this amazing deaf and blind woman (raised speaking only Cantonese) can learn to speak and write English, and write several books in the language!!!! People should be ashamed at their laziness! The other three stories in the movie are more "arty" but all of them are handled fairly well. As much as we probably don't want to admit it, the vast majority of humankind can probably relate to the three stories of more traditional loneliness in the film....After losing his wife, a man loses the will to live.....A girl is spurned by her new "crush" for no apparent reason....Even the slow, fat man with a heart of gold was sympathetic....

And as this IS a Southeast Asian movie, there's even a ghost!! Anyway, this was a flawed film (too many closeup shots of people eating...), but definitely a surprisingly good one. 7.5/10

This movie is made up of 3 interwoven vignettes of people searching for love and connection. The setting is Singapore. The first is about a 61 year old woman named Theresa Chan who unexpectedly finds love when circumstances bring into her life a widower (played by Chiew Sung Ching) who struggles to let go of grief. Theresa Chan is played by herself as this story is partly based on her true life story. She lost her sight and hearing at the age of 14 from illness. She reminds me of Helen Keller. She is spunky and lives her life with more gusto than a lot of us seeing and hearing folks do. i was very moved by her segment. The 2nd tale is about a security guard ( Seet Keng Yew) who is very infatuated with a young, pretty executive (Lynn Poh) who works in the same office building. This sweet soul reminded me a little of Quasimodo, whose Esmeralda is oblivious to his existence. The last tells the tale of 2 teenage school girls who strike up a friendship while chatting on the internet. They meet and fall in love. Soon Sam (Samantha Tan) decides to callously drop Jackie (Ezann Lee), but Jackie cannot let go.

This is a lovely, poignant piece. If you have loved, or loved and lost, or experienced the pain of unrequited love or been jilted, something will resonate with you, even if you can't quite follow all the dialog. Just allow your heart to feel.

When the credits suddenly rolled and the film came to an unexpected end, i thought,"Wait, stop, i need a moment here. Can i please have a moment? My tears have not dried."

A rewarding experience, albeit one that seems at least 30 minutes longer than it actually is. The slow buildup is for the most part careful foundation building for the second half of the film, a rarity in Singaporean film and a testament to Khoo's ever-growing maturity as a filmmaker and controller of pace, although when that second half comes, it feels like a jarring switch not unlike the one pulled by David Lynch in the middle of his 1997 film, Lost Highway. The signs are present that Khoo worked to bridge the discontinuity of the 3 stories and the order in which they are presented (foreshadowing and foregrounding of certain recurring visual images), but the fact that he does not perfectly succeed is of little detriment to the final product.

It is a well-made movie consisting of one strong tale of strength, recovery, and the beauty of love bookended by two other stories that would have benefited from being drawn as their own entities and stood up and apart from the central story of the blind and deaf Theresa Chan (pretty much Singapore's own Helen Keller). Instead, they try to conform to the model of sparse dialogue and psychostylistic sense-deprivation that serves that story so well - the result being that they appear unevenly matched. Still, a fine film.

(previously posted at 1minreview.com)