RED DRAGONFLIES (2010)

Genre: Drama
Director: Liao Jiekai
Cast: Ng Xuan Ming, Jason Hui, Thow Xin Wei, Oon Yee Jeng, Yeo Shang Xuan, Ong Kuan Loong, Chen Mei Guang, Haruka Ashida
RunTime: 1 hr 36 mins
Released By: 13 Little Pictures
Rating: PG
Official Website: www.reddragonflies.sg

Opening Day: 5 May 2011 (Filmgarde Cineplex, Iluma)

Synopsis: Rachel and her two friends explore an abandoned railway track that runs through a dense forest, but an unforeseen incident brings their little adventure to an abrupt end. Elsewhere, 26-year-old Rachel rekindles an old friendship with a high school friend. When a little boy from her past reappears, Rachel finds herself retracing a trail of iron and wood. Wistful and mysterious, the film depicts a world littered with incongruity, absences and traces of childhood dreams.

Movie Review:

We are not going to pretend that we understand what exactly went on in this first feature film by local director Liao Jiekai. How difficult can it get to get the gist of this film, you ask - considering that the plot is about three friends who go on a trekking trip through a dense forest, and a seemingly connected storyline about a returning homegrown artist who revisits old friends and familiar sights?

Quite difficult, actually. And to a certain extent, frustratingly so.

We are supposing that director scriptwriter Liao made this award winning work to challenge his audience’s senses. Liao’s background in the arts has served him well for this surrealistic piece: The graduate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago has made abstract shorts like The Inner City (2009) and White Days (2009), and is also a contributor to this year’s Singapore Biennale. It is no surprise then, that the 96 minute full length feature deals with intangible concepts like memory and loss through symbols and connections.

When you see three young students donning backpacks hiking through a dense forest, attempting to explore the trails left behind by an abandoned railway track, you think that this is a film about three friends on an adventure. Through their conversations, you decipher what their personalities could be like and the dynamics between the three of them.

Another plot inter-cuts this forest adventure, and you think that the female protagonist here is the grown up version of the bespectacled young girl rambling through the greeneries in her school uniform. In this storyline, we see an artist returning to Singapore (complete with the American accent, no less). She meets up with an old friend, talk about how things have changed since she left Singapore, and goes to locations which had imprinted impressions in her years ago.

So it’s a fairly straightforward and simple story involving nostalgic flashbacks and catching up with old friends, you think? The last third of the film will prove you wrong – very wrong.

As the film progresses, congruity increasingly becomes less of a concern (we will not give too much away here, except that things are definitely not what they seem), and it definitely takes effort to follow what the filmmaker is trying to say. Through a series of visuals which convey juxtaposing messages, the film challenges you to think about what the past means to you as an individual, and how symbols like a red dragonfly, a stretch of rusty train tracks, and a towering green forest have effects on the human mind. It is not an entertaining movie by any means. The shaky cinematography, the sparse editing, the somewhat inconsequential dialogue, the absence of soaring orchestral music, and the choice of non actors to play the film’s central characters - these are all traits of an independent film which was made without the intention to entertain the masses.

This production plays out more like an art installation than a conventional cinematic piece. When the film ends with a series of home video footages documenting Liao’s hiking trip during his high school days, you may take a moment to ponder about the memories and loss that you have misplaced in a corner of your mind years ago.

Movie Rating:

(An unconventional work that challenges you to relocate those lost pieces of memories)

Review by John Li