The Arts House
The Arts House is located at the old Parliment Building just behind the new Parliment Building along the Singapore River. I am not sure what they have there, but I think they are showing the Vagina Monologue a while back. Wonder if they would do a Hokkien version of it and call it The CheeBye Monologue? Must reach out to the rest of the populations like the ah bengs and ah lians mah! The place is nicely decorated and there is a cafe inside that has some local singers performing. I think its more of like an open mic thingy? Visit it, imagine sitting down at the same place where majority of this country’s laws were passed!
Anyway, I was there for two movie screenings which they were holding in this small little theatre. Its called the Mini Film Festival sponsered by none other than Mini (the car).
First show I watched was “The Immortal”. Its a futuristic movie about one human, one dayak (an alien) and an Egyptian god, Horus (the one with the falcon face). Horus is sentenced to death in 7 days by th other Gods (Panther face girl and Jackel face guy who was trying to learn to play Monopoly). the human guy is a political prisoner who was freed by an industrial accident and the dayak is a girl with blue hair and pale skin who doesn’t know why she is here.
This movie is mixed between computer animations and real live acting. The characters interact with one another no matter whether its live or computer generated. Anyway, the plot is about Horus is given 7 days to find a human body to possess and to procreate. He found the human guy and procreate with the dayak. I think he actually raped her when he took over the body of the guy. I think so, coz I slept thru like 20mins of it.
If you have the time, then you watch it. But if you want to see the visual stunning graphics, go watch it too.
The other show I watched was this Spanish show called Torremolinos 73.
Its about this door-to-door encyclopaedia salesman who can’t sell anything, whose wife lost her job and they are 3 months behind rent. And to top it off, his boss wants him to make educational adult films for the Scandinavian market with his wife or else he is fired.
Facing these odds, we see the salesman’s attempts to cope with the situation and how he was transformed. I think he managed to discover his passion to make those films and in the end, made his wife a sex symbol in Scandinavia. This is a tragi-comedy which towards the end, we see how he had to choose between either giving in to his wife’s desire for a baby or give it up totally due to the way the producer wanted his epic to end.
More than just being a witty farce, Torremolinos 73 provides interesting social commentary about love and family.
This is a good film to watch, much better than The Immortal.
I am trying to catch “The Cook, the thief, his wife & her lover”.
asshat! As usual never get tics for your friends.
short films bore me. *yawn*
These are not short films, but full length featured films.
Oh..right. ok. They are nice.
“The cook, the thief, his wife and her lover” is a very old film! I watched it more than 10 years ago. Wanted to walk out of the theatre 10 mins into the show. Found it very disturbing and very distasteful.
why is that show bad?
Hey, have you found a woman of your life already huh?
The first few minutes into the show, the gangster thief and his cronies fed some dogs some laxatives. Then they took the dogs’ excrement and smeared it onto a guy they wanted to teach a lesson. I can’t remember if they made him eat some.
The rest of the show has similar gross and vomit inducing scenes.
If this show is supposed to be arty, then I am very happy being crass and uncouth.
yeah the cook/wife/thief/lover is a disturbing film. But its a magnificent one. If you like Films you will enjoy. The ‘thief’ character is one of the most despicable charcters on screen. but it is so beautifully shot. watch it you will appreciate it. I bought DVD when it came out. One of Greenaways best.
hmm.. two different reviews of the same film.. this makes people even more curious about the show.. heh.. I was telling my friend this.
Me: eh, someone said the show very disgusting..
friend: how disgusting..
Me: you know, paste the shit on people’s face and stuff
friend: wah, then must see..
Me: wah lau.. why?
friend: you dun know I sadist meh?
Me: ….
okay, I watched The Cook, The Thief, his wife and her lover last night. Like LMD said, the rest of the show is gross but not that vomit inducing, except maybe for the last scene. I was quite tired for the day that I slept thru some of it. heh, by the way, the shit was actually chocolate moose. The clothings were all designed by JPG though. and the freaking “thief” character talks too bloody much. I want to shoot the boy who sang the soprano voice as he was waking me up from my sleep! It was a full house though.