By Siddarth Puri
Loo Zihan is the writer, co-director, and actor of Solos, a Singaporean film about a young teenager and his illicit relationship with his male teacher -- all told without a single line of dialogue.
Asia Pacific Arts: Why did you decide to make Solos silent?
Loo Zihan: It wasn't intentionally silent. There were, in fact, scripted lines for each character, and we did recordings. We thought we could have parts of it completely silent, but we thought more about what the intention and story was, and in the end it just seemed logical to make it completely silent.
APA: What was one of the more important themes that emerged from Solos?
LZ: I guess one of the main central themes is kind of ambiguous, but it's selfishness -- which was a reflection of my emotional state at that point in my life. It's a stage in which everything is focused on you, and you unknowingly hurt other people. In the relationships [Solos has three main unnamed characters: a boy, a man, and the boy's mother], you see a lot of role reversals and power dynamics between the man and the child, and the child and the mom. In some scenes you wonderwho is the child and who is the parent. That is a really central theme.
APA: The most fascinating character, to me, was the mom. While the two men in the film were obviously queer, there was something queer about the mom as well. The eye-patch she wore, her relationship with technology and even the control she wanted over her son and her ambiguity were all very queer in context. Where did the inspiration from her character come?
LZ: She's actually the most autobiographical character of the work. She's based a lot on my own mother, and I know a lot of my friends' mothers who are like that. What I wanted to do with her was to show how Singapore has developed so much and the country that [her generation] grew up in is so different from how it is now. From technology to even sexuality and discussions of relationships, everything has changed. And I wanted to ask: how do you deal with this change and catch up to technology? How do you deal with loss -- emotional, mechanical -- all of these types of losses that the older generation has to now deal with? And I wanted to capture her when she was at that stage.
APA: In some of your press releases for the film, you had said that you wanted this film to open up the mindset of Singapore in terms of how they view sexuality and relationships. How do you view the Singaporean film industry, and what changes do you think are necessary for it to continue making films that force people to think?
LZ: The problem is that censorship and funding blocks, and the media development authority are the main government bodies, and it's strange that the funding block (which is the Singapore film commission) and the censorship block are under the same body. And that restricts the output and the quality of the content and the kind of content that can be produced.
APA: So going back to your film, I understand that you didn't want Solos to be screened in Singapore because there were three sex scenes that were going to be cut.
LZ: Actually there are four sex scenes in the movie, but the last one didn't require a cut. It hasn't even been shown in any festivals or anything in Singapore; it's been pulled from any public display there and won't be screened there anytime soon. The first time it was shown in a proper cinema was when it was shown in Pusan at a film festival.
APA: How did it feel then, to work so hard on this film for so long, funding it yourself and then not be able to show it in your home country?
LZ: It was really hard at first. I was initially very very frustrated and kept asking myself if it was worth doing this film and sacrificing so much for it. Eventually I came to terms with it because I decided to look at in terms of the long run. A film is for eternity, so I'm doing this film for the community, people, activists and scholars that will look at it in twenty years; and they can see that in this point in time, there was this film, and it reflects something about that time period and society.
APA: Was there any uproar or reaction from the queer community in Singapore when the film wasn't shown?
LZ: There was no real uproar from the community. Most recently, the community was organizing around the petition to repeal the British colonial law 377A, which makes sex between people of the same sex illegal. They have been mostly fighting to repeal that, and the parliament decided not to repeal it, and till this day, that's the biggest campaign by the gay community. Eventually, the government said they won't repeal it, but the government recognized the petition as a good campaign because it was through the proper channels.
APA: Are there are queer films/filmmakers that are emerging from Singapore now?
LZ: Actually there are a substantial amount of queer filmmakers in Singapore, but not all of them are dealing with queer themes in their films. Recently, they are becoming more active in engaging and depicting gay themes in their films, so it's increasing.
APA: Do you think through time the Singapore film industry and Singapore, as a nation, will open up to the idea of the queer community?
LZ: I think so. I hope so. Singapore is such a transitional society. Singapore now is so different from the Singapore of 40 years ago and I have no idea what it will be like in another 40 years. So I can't say for sure, but I can say I want the society to open up. I think film is a powerful way to express what's going on now and I can't be certain about it, but I can say that by using film, we can try to open up the narrow mindset of people.
APA: So, your next film is Pleasure Factory, and it's already been released in Singapore. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
LZ: It was a film about the Red Light District in Singapore. I just have a role in it, and it was a learning experience for me. The director was a Thai-Singaporean film and theater director who has done a lot and is renowned, so I was glad to have a chance to work with him.
APA: What is your next directorial project?
LZ: I'm in film school right now and trying to finish up schoolwork, so I'm busy with that right now. I'm going more into something I've always been interested in exploring, and that's video installation. I'm doing one on the wife of the founder of Singapore.
Published: Friday, November 16, 2007
