Films

In Attendance: Chris Chong Chan Fui (Director)

Set in a karaoke bar, against the backdrop of a Malaysian palm oil plantation, Chris Chong Chan Fui’s remarkable KARAOKE moves at a wandering pace similar to international sensations Tsai Ming-Liang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. From the opening jarring sounds of bar patrons cut against non-synch moments of social interaction, the story eventually unfurls as contexts widen and scenes breathe. As time stretches and moments emerge, the director’s hand is played.

Betik has returned to his home in the village from a long painful hiatus and expects his mother Kak Ina to embrace him and permit him to carry on the family business. His mother has other plans. She hopes to sell the bar and leave the dilapidated town for a better life. Set against the constant kitsch of karaoke videos with sing-a-long lyrics, the romantic yearnings of Betik rise as he focuses on a young girl Anisah. Desperate to find an anchor in the community, Betik pursues the girl and through a series of coincidences, winds up standing in as a model for a video production of a karaoke story. This film within a film becomes the central metaphor for Betik’s longings and the gap between fantasy, projection, and less than ideal reality. The landscapes and abandoned spaces are beautifully shot in static long takes and an extended journey through the otherworldly trees of the jungle is as intoxicating as any shot this year in cinema. Somehow there is a disconnect between the people, the natural world, and their created expressive feelings--- captured in these overreaching songs of paradise and happiness. KARAOKE deftly allows the songs, the characters, and the quiet natural world to all intermingle and develop their own significance in this artfully paced meditation. - Trevor Smith, CIFF Program Manager