Monday, September 02, 2013
“无政府” 的好日子，宣告结束。
人生是黑白的.
11:24 PM <3
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Sunday, September 01, 2013
I haven't been watching movies much this year, but when news broke that a Singaporean film had been recognized in the prestigious Cannes Film Festival for the first time, I told myself that I shouldn't miss it.
Ilo Ilo (爸妈不在家) is actually a simple story with not much dramatic bite, but it probably won audiences with its authenticity of a typical Singaporean family in the 1990s. It followed the dynamics of relationships when a Filipino domestic helper was employed into a local Chinese family amidst the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, and how the hostile boy eventually turned to like the helper and incurred some jealousy by the mother.
I noticed some subtle undeveloped storylines in the film, which had the potential of further developing the characters. One of it was when the Filipino maid witnessed a suicide by a neighbour, and then looked at her own wrist, which had a healed scar. That part wasn't explained further, just that she was angry when the boy joked about death. The director probably hoped that the audience would ponder over these subtleties.
I enjoyed the nostalgia when watching this movie, which was set in the 1990s. The father was using a pager; the boy playing Tamagotchi; there weren't flat computer screens nor LCD TV; there were no Yusof Ishak currency notes etc. You could tell that effort was put in to avoid capturing any signs of current-day technologies, which I believe would be pretty challenging. My friend and I did notice one loophole -- we saw a Abercrombie & Fitch paper bag. Otherwise, you'd even suspect if it was really shot in the 1990s.
It was cool to know that Yeo Yann Yann, the female lead, was really pregnant when she took the role of a pregnant mother. The ending credits actually showed real footage of her delivery.
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Rave reviews were given for this film by the media and critics alike. I agree it was a sincere autobiographical feature film, but I'm still a little curious to know what was that main punch that made the audience at Cannes give the film a 15-minute standing ovation after the screening. The film went on to claim the Caméra d'Or ("Golden Camera") for Best first feature film this year. It definitely deserves positive reviews everywhere, but I'm sure there's still capacity to improve in his second and subsequent film offerings.
Nevertheless, I'd encourage you to enter the cinema to support it and other local films.
人生是黑白的.
10:21 PM <3
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It's my 7th consecutive AHM this year, the only race event that I've been diligently doing without fail year after year. As usual, I turned up for the race with just 2 hours of sleep, with a little bit of help from caffeine.
Mention AHM this year, and I'm sure one grouse that is on everyone's minds, is the Great Bottleneck below the ECP, near Tanjong Rhu. It's a disaster to have such a narrow stretch of the park connector in the route. (The width is barely enough for 2 people shoulder-to-shoulder!) So you get thousands of runners virtually in a standstill, trying to squeeze into the small pavement. We were stuck for about 20 minutes, but there are runners who had to lose 30 minutes there.
This was the exact same running route unchanged from last year. The same thing had happened last year, and so I was already disappointed when I heard about the (same) route. But that notorious stretch seemed to be worse off this year. That was also not the only bottleneck, as many others were scattered along the route, and even in the 10km race route as well. Perhaps SBR can also be known as the Singapore Bottleneck Run.
The screwed bottlenecks aside, due credit still has to be given to the race organisers. In my opinion, SAFRA is the best organizer of running events, and I still think it is. I wouldn't have bothered coming year after year otherwise.
1. The plentiful water points and Salonpas aid stations at frequent intervals put all other running events to shame. I never had to look far whenever I had the slightest feeling of thirst.
2. Very thoughtful installation of speakers at parts of the route where they'd normally be grave quiet and demotivational. I'm talking about the Bay East gardens stretch. Stanchart organisers should learn.
3. Very creative taglines and motivational phrases along the race route. I'm sure great effort had been put into them. Example: "Think doing a half marathon is difficult? Try giving birth." and "You've done harder things than this before. (with diagrams of Jacob's Ladder and Long ropes beside)". But there's also the irony that the poster was reading "Don't Stop. Keep pushing", right at the great bottleneck -- many ended up slapping it or taking photos of it.
4. For the first time ever, there's a Finisher's Tee for AHM, and a great design too. Perhaps they're trying to stay competitive, as many other zapalang races are also issuing Finisher's Tee here and there nowadays.
5. Very well-organized race pack collection event one week before the race. Very thoughtful SMS reminders for the race pack collection event, and 1 day before the race. Very adequate deployment of (NS) marshalls at the running route and even nearby roads outside the route to guide human flow.
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Generally, it was a fairly good run, without cramps nor pain nor bad weather. The bottleneck caused a break in running momentum and cost precious minutes, but it's still a useful build-up to the full marathon some 13 weeks later.
Past timings for the last 7 years:
SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2007 timing -- 02:14:29
SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2008 timing -- 02:21:02
SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2009 timing -- 02:17:38
SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2010 timing -- 02:04:18
SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2011 timing -- 02:07:33
SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2012 timing -- 02:15:18
SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2013 timing -- 02:24:41 (20-min bottleneck)
人生是黑白的.
6:06 PM <3
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