Fundamentally Happy

There is a boldness in the artistic vision. The film, in large part, is an assemblage of close-up images, the images of faces. At first glance, the storytelling is purely held together by the words of the play, of which the film is an adaptation. The actors speak the lines, the theatrical artifice clear. The words seem to tell the whole story. The easy judgment is that it makes too faithful a mould; it is almost an exact replica of the theatre piece.

Or is it? Theatre actors often need to project their voice so that every member of the audience can hear what is being said. This art of projection, and the physical set-up of the theatre, can be said to limit the acting possibilities: facial expressions cannot be too subtle as seen from a distance. In this light, the film is trying to do what the theatre cannot. Its technologies allow the camera to pick up every micro-facial expression, making a fetish of the different faces it pins its shot on. There is an obsession, a wonderment in the point of view of this panopticonic camera.

What to make of this method? It makes you think of the methods of cinematography, the expanding possibilities of storytelling on film. This is a self-conscious film, sincere and direct in its intentions, with a keen intellect behind the camera and a genuine simplicity in its directions. A promising first feature film by the director Tan Bee Thiam.