What the hype

Finally caught Be With Me with Bing and Jing today, and frankly, I was disappointed. It just ain't worth the hype.

Either that, or it just ain't my cuppa, ya know?

If you ask me, I don't see how it is different from 12 Storeys. And incidentally, I do prefer 12 Storeys. There's the same ghost figure around, the same extreme close-ups, static camera shots, clean cut, and all that, and I do not see how his style has evolved in any way that calls for the sudden high-profile recognition.

Eric Khoo also seems to have a preoccupation with the social outcasts, and that is interesting. But having seen this thread repeatedly, without an update, can be rather off-puting.

That said, I do appreciate how he has woven the 3 stories together. He's done it better than Richard Curtis in Love Actually, but that ain't saying much for a supposedly acclaimed indie director. The lesbian story is bittersweet, as is the security guard tragic love (or lack of) story, but it didn't particularly interest me in a filmic manner. I feel for the stories on a personal level, but I don't feel the film.

And again, either I'm cold-blooded, or I just can't digest Eric Khoo's take on realism. I do so love realism, but that akin to that of Italian Neo-Realism tends to lose me along the way. I guess it goes to show that my love for the wacky and bizarre and creative knew no bounds (think French New Wave, Taratino, Woody Allen, Charlie Kaffman). Anything that is not those things .... well, enough said.

For those of you who aren't usually into arthouse films, I would not recommend you watch this at all. It would probably be a torture, going by the number of times Jing yawned. It simply ain't the type of arthouse film you would enjoy because it is not entertainment. It's art, and it's the type of which value I would not pretend to understand.