Ilo Ilo
“a Singaporean gem”
It isn’t often that we hear a movie quietly and pleasurably reverberating around Cannes festival, especially one that comes from Singapore, a place not usually known for its cinematic features, but this all changed with Ilo Ilo. Director Anthony Chen places Singapore on the map with his deeply moving debut that shows the poignant relationship between a helper (Angeli Bayani) and her charge, a troublemaking young boy (Jia Leh Koh).
Set in the backdrop of the Asian financial crisis of 1997, Ilo Ilo doesn’t lavishly decorate its storytelling with sensationalism, which it easily could have fallen into, instead, and with the sensitive care of Anthony Chen, the film strips away into a bare and honest look at the HDB life of a struggling Singaporean family trying to keep their heads above it all. The scoundrel pulling the family down a little is the hard-to-love Jiale who can’t seem to get out of trouble. A boy living in the clouds, above Singapore’s strict reality, Jiale frustrates us, depleting our patience and really testing our love for him. All of this is rekindled when a Filipina domestic helper, Teresa, enters the frame. The relationship we witness is one that brims with love, laughter and heartbreak. The chemistry between the two is tangible, Jiale and Terry are the perfect match, creating a connection that fills the void in both their worlds. The two are differently foreign from one another, Terry being apart from her Filipina culture and Jiale running away from the grief that haunts him. This exploration finds facets of Singaporean lives that are rarely if at all, seen in films, but also expands on the domestic helper culture in this milieu.
The rest of the family does an exceptional job at keeping the emotional nuances of Ilo Ilo, whether it’s the duality between the pregnant mother (Yann Yann Yeo) and Terry or the quiet compassion the father (Tian Wen Chen) displays, there is not one missed beat. If you were ever interested in extending your film repertoire beyond America and Europe, look no further than South East Asia for this Singaporean gem.
