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•• Foreign Film Edition ••
ILO ILO[2013, SINGAPORE - Mandarin, English]

Singaporean director ANTHONY CHEN was only twenty-nine years old when his feature debut, ILO ILO made a smashing premiere at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, winning the critics over and bagged the Caméra d’Or, becoming the first Singaporean film to ever receive the prestigious honor. Simple and decorous, the ninety-nine minutes family drama outlines a linear tale about a family’s growing bond with their newly recruited domestic helper. Inspired by his personal childhood having grown up with a Filipina live-in nanny between the ages of four to twelve, Chen wanted to show this part of the Asian lives which may not be familiar to the rest. “The more I thought about it (domestic helper system), the more I thought about how brutal the system is - where you invite a stranger to your home and spend time with your family, with your kids. After a certain time, they almost become part of the family but what is so cruel and brutal is when at the time where circumstances have changed, the kids have grown up or you are moving house or you ran out of money or you think it’s an excess - you decide "let's send home the maid". What is so brutal is usually because the adults make those decisions but the kids are the ones that have really built that kind of bond with this foreigner who almost become part of the family - Because most of the time, the parents don't know the helper well at all as they are usually at work. It's the kids who spend the most time with the helpers so I wanted to explore that which became the starting point for the film I guess,” said the director who is inspired by Asian filmmakers like EDWARD YANG, ZHANG YIMOU and ANG LEE.

The film centers on pubescent protagonist Jiale (KOH JIA LER), a headstrong and difficult child who resists the welcoming of a Filipina nanny, Theresa (ANGELI BAYANI) into the family. Jiale is a handful, and is not getting enough attention from his pregnant working mother, Hwee Leng (YEO YANN YANN) and father, Teck (CHAN TIANWEN) who is struggling with his career. Amidst shenanigans like wounding himself just to frame the school principal, Jiale continues to make things difficult for the foreigner who is sharing not just his room, but most of the hours of his day in the absence of his struggling parents. Despite a seemingly typical storyline that may appear to be one of those films with the potential hackneyed playing of family drama and emotions, ILO ILO works in many ways. Chen displays a keen sense of relating growth of his characters with the impending financial crisis repercussions that took place in Asian countries in 1997. The dynamics of the family is engaging and the film would definitely bring forth a sense of intimacy which many Asian families could relate to. And it’s even more so for the director himself, where the success of the film has conjured the reunion between him and his nanny, TERESITA SAJONIA whom had not been in contact for sixteen years. Underneath it all, ILO ILO is an honest tale which is neither trying too hard nor pulling off stylistic stunts, it’s the purity that won the critics’ hearts, making it beat heavyweight contenders like WONG KAR WAI and JOHNNY TO in winning Best Film at the 50th Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival.

Rating: B+

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