i went in assuming what many would - That Girl in Pinafore is a rip-off of 那些年，我们一起追的女孩.
i came out thinking: it probably is, but by looking past the obvious flaws, it's also a film with a lot of heart, and one that surely strikes closer to home than 那些年.
this post may be titled as such, but it's in fact less about a movie than about our way of life, the Singapore story. what do you remember about the 90s? whether you know it or not, Xinyao probably played some part in your story.
make no mistake, there's lots of shortcomings in this film. for a film, being called "lame" is probably one of the biggest insults. at the top of my list, the direction too is mediocre. yet you get a sense that Chai Yee Wei still might be the best person to lead the project. after all, i read the director's a huge Xinyao fan.
direction aside, his screenplay is commendable - or, using my synonym, unbelievable. how so? it's quite impressive how Chai squeezed so many nuggets of 90s life in. i can't say i relate completely to that period but since those that struck a chord were already quite awesome, i can't imagine how it is for someone who can relate completely.
the schooling days (surely more so than 那些年), the lingo (how every generation of youths speak differently), taking one too many buses (before the advent of map apps and gothere), phone calls (the landline sort) and boy-girl banter... so on and so forth.
the dark underbelly received airtime too - the strict, ambitious parent preaching an "English education", and underlying, passive racism, for instance.
and talking about Xinyao, that's where Chai (and Liang Wern Fook without a doubt) really comes to the fore. i also can't say i know Xinyao well, yet the film, its music, and its soul genuinely moved me.
just like how i would discuss this film with anyone, the plot is rightfully secondary to what is essentially an homage to Xinyao.
one nuance: when May asks Jiaming if he's singing his love for her, he instead says he's singing about the coconuts. as a student of Literature, i was completely blown away. between the lines, Jiaming seems to nudge May. Xinyao itself was very much poetry, wasn't it? when the masters of that era saturated simple lyrics with such deep references. it can be about coconuts, while it also can be about my love for you. by doing this Xinyao also captures, as it always does, an idiosyncrasy of that Singapore, when overt affection wasn't common.
what's not a nuance, at least judging from the moviegoers' reaction, was the turn of the plot and the lack of a happy ending.
i thought it's so apt, entirely consistent with Xinyao's DNA. Xinyao sings of a generation, of ideals balanced with reality. Xinyao is optimistic, but it's also life, and not all stories have a happy ending. its optimism celebrates the generation and life.
拍的是爱情
与友情 讲的是新谣. 新谣唱的是人生 而人生就是有起有落. 它唱的年代和理想 你怎么把握 只有今天的你知道. 新谣从未追求天长地久
只祝福你珍惜曾经拥有. 这应该就是细水长流的意思吧.
my final thought: there are great films that you can watch many times. and there are bad movies that you watch just once. then there are the rare films you can also only watch once - for the right reasons.
