Setting the Stage with INTERCHANGE for the 27th SGIFF
As the curtains draw on opening night, Singapore audiences will witness a new kind of Southeast Asian cinema.
SINGAPORE – Films are a product of curious human endeavour. Most seek to entertain, some don’t, but all inform of their maker’s psyche. You would be horrified to entertain such thoughts of Dain Iskandar Said, one of Southeast Asia’s most adventurous film directors today, as the opening scene unspools – what kind of mind would one had to have to envision such a grotesque murder scene? But digging a little deeper – what does it mean for the Festival to program such a viscerally dark title? For Festival Director Zhang Wenjie:
“In Interchange, director Dain Iskandar Said creates a mystical world that is familiar yet unfamiliar in its gleaming modernity – the perfect metropolis, like so many in our region. Yet beneath its shiny veneer, the world of Interchange is populated by shadowy figures and shamans of Malay folklore. This intoxicating brew of modernity and tradition is a remarkable thing to achieve in any film.”
Interchange creates a new kind of Southeast Asian cinema that has not been seen nor achieved before.
A luxurious event hall that becomes a prestigious festival’s screening venue for one night, exhibiting a film that reconfigures such a utopian ideal with a subterranean underbelly. Indeed, for this film to be seen in this city-state that prides itself not merely in the extent of its gentrification, but rather in the efficiency and speed at which places could be gentrified – Interchange is a fascinating take on the uneasy dramatic tensions engendered, even aggravated in the physical space, spilling over into the supernatural one.
Of course Interchange should not be seen just through this lens, for it is also an entertaining psychological thriller. “It is amazing what Dain and his team have achieved on screen on a budget of RM3.7 million (S$1.2 million).” Wenjie concludes. “But beyond the production value, the ambitiousness of the film is apparent in the way the story takes risks with genre and marries the commercial and the artistic while drawing upon its own culture for inspiration. Interchange creates a new kind of Southeast Asian cinema that has not been seen nor achieved before.”
So as a reflection of the style and calibre of films that the Festival champions, this Malaysian-Indonesian co-production is perfect in setting the tone for the festival. It is visceral and haunting, and yet its genre trappings are refreshing in its way to explore more deep-seated themes related to identity, even colonialism, in a bid to find redemption from their traumatic fallout. Interchange is uncompromising in its vision, exciting in ambition and pleasantly unexpected in tone. As a hint for the other films in the lineup, this year’s opening night film is a tantalising taster of what kind of cinema moviegoers can look forward to in the ensuing 11 days.
Interchange screens on Wednesday, 23 November 2016, 7.15pm at Marina Bay Sands with filmmaker and cast in attendance. BUY TICKETS