Death-defying act

In her latest documentary, Singapore GaGa film-maker Tan Pin Pin turns her lens to immortality. Billie Cohen reports

Tan Pin Pin hops lightly out of a cab and shakes my hand. The award-winning local film-maker passes me a DVD of her first film, her student thesis from Northwestern University, Moving House, then jumps back into the taxi and speeds off to the editing suite where she’s diligently crafting her latest documentary, Invisible City. It’s no surprise she’s so busy; this film, the much-awaited follow-up to 2006’s critically acclaimed Singapore GaGa, has to be completed by 19 July, when it will premiere at NUS and then head to the Arts House for a commercial run (22 Jul-12 Aug). When we talk again, this time by phone, she is back at the studio, honing 60 hours of footage into a documentary that won’t just deal with her own legacy, but that of everyone in it too. Not that there’s any pressure.

What’s the focus of your latest film?
Invisible City is primarily about an attempt at immortality.

That’s no small feat.
I know, I know. It’s actually a film that hits at the basic needs of people. This documentary tracks their journey as they try to ensure, as far as they can, that what they’ve done, or themselves, isn’t forgotten.

You had such colourful characters in Singapore GaGa. How did you find the people for this one?
The way I make a documentary is quite unusual. I just shoot people I find interesting and it’s constructed in the editing process. So it started out as a documentary about spaces.

I remember hearing that – it was about sanctuary spaces, right?
Yes, but in the case of Singapore, because things move so fast, spaces become a way to hold memories. So that’s how, with that little door open, I stumbled upon people who are trying to sort of entrench their memories into people’s minds.

Like who?
One person is a retired medical doctor in his eighties who has 30 hours of footage of Singapore taken in the 1950s. And what’s so special is that it’s the first colour footage ever taken of this country. Right now he has had two brain operations so his memory is going, but he’s trying very hard to annotate these images: time, place, and where and what was taken.

How do you find these people?
I suppose I’m a really curious person, I just go up to people – in the same way that Singapore GaGa was shot. There are personalities that I wanted to meet and know, and as you listen to their stories a lot of other themes open up. I have 60 hours of footage, enough to make three documentaries. But in terms of why these people were chosen, it’s simply because I was attracted to the idea of the act of documenting, and how that might relate to immortality [laughs].

Why immortality?
I was trying to find the root of why people take pictures, really. Was there a deeper meaning than just pressing a button on your hand-phone these days?

What’d you find?
I think, on a very basic level, everyone feels that they want to be remembered. So that’s why when you travel, you see etchings on the wall like ‘I was here’ or ‘Jason was here’.

You’ve travelled a lot, do you see that all over the world?
Yeah, all the time. And these little gestures – sometimes they’re written in something as banal as a pencil [laughs].

Is this idea of immortality something that has arced through your career?
I suppose it all harks back to why I make films in the first place. As a Singaporean film-maker, there’s a very strong sense of the need to be heard – just as all these other people who are featured in the documentary do in their own way. Whether you write your name on the wall or take a photograph, you just want to stake your ground in a rather slippery place.

And who is it you want to be heard by? Singaporeans? The world?
I wanted to find out if other people who also took films or made records felt the same way as I did. So it’s not specifically for Singaporeans; it’s a lot more general than that. I think it’s just in this flowing river of life you want to have a stone that doesn’t move for a bit, that you could come back to if you wanted to, and also be found by people who would know where it is.

And this film is your stone?
Yes, exactly. This film is my stone.

Can I backtrack for a bit – why did you call it Singapore GaGa?
I wanted a name that was nonsensical, because Singapore GaGa was a rattlebag of random sounds. And I wanted a title that didn’t create too many conceptions, so people went in fresh and not knowing what to expect, and then they’re given this impression of Singapore.

That film got so much attention, how did you approach your follow-up? Was there a lot of pressure?
Yeah, there was. And there were many times when I felt that the shadow cast by GaGa was long. But I think everyone goes through this at some point in their careers. And I decided that the only way to deal with it was to do the best I could.

You’ve had experience with censorship. Your short film, ‘Lurve Me Now’, was banned here. How did that experience influence your future films?
I don’t take anything for granted now. I didn’t see it coming at all. That was how naïve I was.

Do you feel that your films are subversive or political?
I think when you make documentary in Singapore…actually I think any independent voice can be considered subversive really. So in that vein, I would say that it is.

What were you trying to do with ‘Lurve Me Now’? It was sort of like Barbie porn.
I was just interested in making a fiction film without actors, so it was an experiment to try that out.

Did that experience change how you approached your next projects?
Yeah, I think I expect every film of mine to be banned [chuckles], or not so much banned but not given a rating. But Invisible City has got a PG, so I’m extremely pleased.

Ah, you get some cred back from the success of Singapore GaGa?
I think so. I think I’ve been co-opted into the system [laughs]. But I’m here for the long haul so I’m not interested in being banned. Invisible City opens 19 Jul. See Other screenings, The Arts House.