This will be a relatively short entry because, although today, like most in Penang, is amazing - we spend most of it either eating or at the grand finale of the Tropfest short film festival. And if I talk about the films specifically, well - you know - spoilers!
We view the 16 finalists, and the award ceremony (I can reveal that we are pleased with the outcome) outside in the heat between eight and eleven pm. And yes, it is still hot.
It's a bit of a roller coaster. Half the point of shirt films is that you know very little about them, even a genre and so you really never know where it's going. I am charmed, then scared witless by a sudden twist at the end, then my heart strings are plucked. Then I get weepy And it turns out OK. Or I am fascinated, but left still furiously trying to work out what happened. The only one that actually leaves me cold is the one pure comedy of the bunch, which seems lazy. I think the film maker capitalised on the big personality of her well known leading actress and did little else besides. Of course I could do better. Oh yes. Look at all those brilliant short films I've made...no, wait...
What really strikes me though (other than the sneaky little horror film in there which will leave me a little wide eyed tonight) was that a very large proportion of them were year jerkers designed to open the world's eyes to the plight of the poor. Interestingly, a large portion of these were by Cambodian directors and set in Cambodia.
It is heartening that there is such, well, HEART out there and that there is both a will to and a belief in the possibility of - changing the world.
But I find myself dry eyed, if sympathetic, to all but the most clever of these films. To move me, it seemed, simply telling a story of woe and hopeless, even - and perhaps especially - one I knew to be true, was not enough. I was moved by small disappointments, a child unable to go on a promised journey, a street beggar shown kindness by a dying benefactor, against a backdrop of larger, more permanent misery. I am a little alarmed to find I am now no longer as moved by simple suffering.
Of course life and art are different, however interrelated they might be - and of course it is well known that poverty and suffering have been known and reluctantly accepted from many many centuries before now. We have grown desensitised and to reach us you do need to communicate on a more personal level. One person's sadness hits us harder than a whole nation of poverty victims. One moment of disappointment means more to us than a lifetime of daily drudgery.
I am grateful to the film makers who understand this. Whose films are canny enough about humanity to actually succeed in drawing our much fought over heart strings and shrinking attention span in close enough to focus on the plight of real people, through the medium of pretend.
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