Review: Tan Pin Pin's Invisible City

For Trailer and Link to the Official Website, see the bottom of this article

Tan Pin Pin is perhaps Singapore's best known documentarian, having had her previous documentary Singapore GaGa play to sold out screenings, and being voted the Best Picture of 2006 by Singapore's mainstream broadsheet paper. Invisible City is her follow up documentary, making its way to the local screens later this month.

Synopsis

Invisible City chronicles the ways people attempt to leave a mark before they and their histories disappear. From an avid amateur film director trying to preserve his decaying trove of Singapore footage to an intrepid Japanese journalist hunting down Singaporean war veterans, Tan Pin Pin draws out doubts, regrets and the poignantly ordinary moments of these protagonists who attempt immortality. Through their footage and photos rarely seen until now, we begin to perceive faint silhouettes of a City that could have been.

My Review

If I could use a word to describe Invisible City, it will be 'Important'; an aptly timed wake up call. Given the recent (coincidental) slew of news on conserving aged architectural beauties, I thought the documentary touched upon issues of importance vis-a-vis those articles, that as material things get demolished and destroyed, what's left are the memories of what once were. And when memories fade, become faulty, not get recorded in some medium as evidence of its existence, what then? It is as if what was had fused into a part of our current Internet world, of being something virtual and intangible from a long time ago, and sadly unrecognizable.

Like how Invisible City was consciously made to just scratch the surface of its deep undertones, forgive me if I do not manage to encompass succintly all the emotions I felt when watching this documentary. Rather, I'd prefer to touch upon what intrigued me, and hope that after watching it, you'll feel something stirring inside, and be interested enough to want to talk about it too.

What I enjoyed about Invisible City, are the moments where it inevitably made you think, about existentialism, about memories, about immortality. The quest of some to want to leave their own mark in the vast world we live in, to make that drop of proclamation -- "I was here!" -- heard.

If I can so boldly intrude on Pin Pin's important piece of work with a reference to geeky pop culture, there are approximately 4 million of us on this tiny island, each shaping our own experience, grappling with own own issues, and our own interpretation of what makes our country. Unlike the Borg Collective where everyone can understand, feel and experience what our fellow men had gone through just because, we realize that while each of us have pertinent, interesting things to share, it doesn't get any easier getting that audience. What's recorded in the annals of history, as the cynical saying goes, are done by the victors. But there are always two sides to a coin, and what about the views of those on the flip side, aren't their experiences worthy enough to make the coin complete, and in turn, our understanding whole?

I don't deny that it's not an easy movie to sit through despite its 60 minute runtime, not because it is boring, but because by the time the documentary ends, you're likely to be overwhelmed by concurrent thoughts of what went on, and be bursting to share and discuss the many intricate subtexts that present themselves in the different narrative threads.

There are plenty of visible gems in the documentary, the tangible ones are the photographs, and colour films of Early Singapore that get shared with the audience, of a world no longer in existence. While another local documentarian Eng Yee Peng's excellent Diminishing Memories dealt with change from within her hometown, Invisible City dealt with the similar subject albeit on a larger scale. Real life on the streets of old captured candidly for posterity, colonial styled buildings forming part of our skyline, yet all are unlabelled until the end credits -- it does make you pause and wonder if knowing them didn't matter because they are no longer there.

Do we need artifacts to convince us of something, of time capsules, buried treasures that need to be dug out, something to hold and feel, versus something more abstract, like memories, experiences, that are more difficult to preserve. As Pin Pin shared, this is like a documentary on documenting, which I thought was like art imitating life. And in a skillfully shrewd manner, I thought one of the best moments was the presentation of a Japanese reporter's finding out more about those recollections on WWII, and the eventual outcome of her article, bringing about almost an unavoidable comparison with Mr Han's experience with the clampdown on student activists in the days before our independence, that while the Japanese were shameful about their war past and having them adjusted for the history books, here too is a small account from a point of view rarely seen and heard, if at all. by a contemporary generation.

What makes history? I think history is made up of emotions. Emotions that are universal, emotions each of us are capable of feeling, that Invisible City is able to elicit. Invisible City is indeed a gem in itself, open your eyes, think, experience and feel.

Invisible City Trailer (YouTube)
Invisible City Website