SYNOPSIS:
Love is
a virus. It incubates silently. It strikes suddenly. It's
favourite breeding ground is small, crowded, claustrophobic
spaces such as an office. Pearl
(Karena Lam), a marketing executive in her twenties, found
herself being drawn closer and closer to Tom (Ekin Cheng),
her married-with-kids boss. She has been working for him for
quite some time and Tom is ever so gentle and kind. Is this
love? Pearl ponders. If so, is the feeling mutual? How and
when did a normal working relationship gradually evolve into
something romantic? What should she do now? Told
in eight scenes retrospectively, the film examines the mysterious
blossoming and dying of an elusive affair. The saddest thing
about this is: it is such a commonplace happening. In the
tiny universe known as office, two powerful forces are at
play – politics and romance.
MOVIE REVIEW:
After our resident reviewer Gabriel Chong gave this movie an unfavorable movie review, our other resident reviewer Stefan Shih commented to me that it’s likely that Gabriel Chong had not gone through enough emotional upheaval to appropriately appreciate this movie. Needless to say, this is one movie that Stefan Shih had held in high regards after watching it in it’s original dialect at the recent Japanese International Film Festival. There were also comments that the Mandarin dub didn’t do justice to this movie.
Let’s get the small issue out of the way first. The Mandarin dub didn’t turn out to be as bad as the comments were saying. Perhaps it’s the years of growing up listening to Hong Kong movie with Mandarin dub that it no longer matters that much (Thanks to our Speak Mandarin Campaign).
The sharp contrast between these two reviewers spikes my interest in this movie and it made me wonder if the relatability factors do play a part in affecting one from enjoying or disliking a film.
While going through the movie, it became apparent why our movie reviewer didn’t like this movie. The issues and romance depicted here are so subtle till it’s almost subliminal. It left a lot for the viewers to figure out what went / going on and unless you have gone through or encountered certain behavior processed by the acts of “love”, it might make one totally clueless about what the movie trying to present. The characters speak in abstract forms and left a lot for the viewers to figure out what’s going on. Viewers are dumped into situations that are presented without heads or tails (meaning you go no idea what transpire before and how was that situation resolved) and it can get rather frustrating.
What made it worse was the payout. After all the guess works, Claustrophobia never even comes clean with what was actually happening between the two leads. There were plentiful suggestions that there were something more that working relationship between Pearl and Tom but it never gave a satisfying answer to how far had this secretive relationship had proceed till. Aggressive viewers who like to draw an conclusion with what’s little material that are being presented might enjoyed it as much as those who had undergone similar situations but otherwise, it just going to left the viewers cold.
It doesn’t help that in the midst of this shadow play on subtle love, Claustrophobia is littered with mundane office work related events and tiresome performance for the supporting cast that gave very little reasons to follow the plot.
Ivy Ho directorial debut was too restrained for it’s own good. In a way, it felt that the director and the storyteller are too wrapped up in their own indulgence in fanciful storytelling styles that they neglected the viewers’ interest and staked too heavily on a gamble that the viewers will be able to appreciate through the means of their own relatability to the issue presented.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
NIL
AUDIO/VISUAL:
This contemporary love story of the Hong Kong working group is presented in fine audio and visual quality for playback on a television set.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING:
Review by Richard Lim Jr
Posted on 29 June 2009
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