Railway memories

Still Malaysian soil at time of writing

Right smack in the heart of Singapore is a small piece of Malaysian land that is the KTM railway station. Even the train tracks are technically on Malaysian soil and it snakes right across the little island nation. Thankfully for Singaporeans, this minor irritation will cease soon, as from July 2011 this historic building at Tanjong Pagar will no longer function as a railway station. Instead, the KTM train will depart Singapore from the Woodlands checkpoint, at the northernmost tip of Singapore. 

This building marks the beginning point of the famed Orient-Express rail route. It also has an interesting interior that was highlighted in an art project by Malaysian artist Simryn Gill at the Singapore Biennial 2006, where she published a booklet discussing the large murals inside the building.

The murals portray the various ethnic groups in Malaya

For me, this building and its familiar route to Kuala Lumpur has sentimental value. As a Malaysian who studied in Singapore for a few years, I would return home for the holidays via the overnight train. As I recall, it cost $40 for a bunk and the journey, from whistle to welcome, lasted from 10pm to 7am. 

I'd sit up in the small bunk with my CD player, the curtains shielding me from the bright corridor lights. Baby cockroaches crawling around the bed sometimes interrupted my enjoyment of the view outside the window: the Malaysian heartland at night.

I especially remember the dark fields and my delight at seeing stars above them; they reminded me of The Little Prince. The train stopped once in a while to pick up the lone passenger who had been waiting for it in the wee hours. Outside my curtain, the shuffling of feet and faint toilet flushes; train doors opening and closing.

There was little hope of getting much sleep on those rides. As the world outside my window grew lighter with the dawn, the train made its way to another historic railway station in Kuala Lumpur. It felt good to eat an A & W breakfast at the station, and to hear Malay being spoken, and to be home again.

(1) Other musings on Malaysiana: Creation Myths, Malay ghost stories, Growing up in 80s Malaysia!

(2) Other people's documentation of the Tanjong Pagar railway station: The Long and Winding Road, Railway Diaries, Why We Should Have The Green Corridor 

Once A Great Love

Once A Great Love 

by Yehuda Amichai

Once a great love cut my life in two.

The first part goes on twisting

at some other place like a snake cut in two.

The passing years have calmed me

and brought healing to my heart and rest to my eyes.

And I'm like someone standing in the Judean desert, looking at a sign:

"Sea Level"

He cannot see the sea, but he knows.

Thus I remember your face everywhere

at your "Face Level."

Very Rapid, Very Vapid... Film Notes

One minute film notes.

On watching Inception

When was the last time Dicaprio didn't play a broken man? I can only think of Celebrity. Don't get me wrong, he's a brilliant actor but I want to see a happy Leo for once.

Play someone happy, Leo

Brad Pitt was refreshing in Burn After Reading. That made him the best thing about this movie for me.

Some actors excel at doing certain things

(1) Nick Nolte is good at playing wounded characters. He's not afraid to look pathetic. See Thin Red Line, Hulk and Tropic Thunder...

(2) Laura Linney is good at pulling a sad smile. She can appear bright and desperate at the same time.

(3) Jeremy Davies is not afraid of playing supremely irritating characters. I respect dat.

(4) Greg Kinnear excels at playing selfish, vain, wanky characters (see You've Got Mail, Little Miss Sunshine, self-absorbed victim in As Good As It Gets), the kind we all come across in our own lives. I also respect dat.

Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky

Don't know much about either historical figures but in this movie Chanel and Stravinsky are both cold characters who seem to deserve each other. Their affair is purely physical (and there's no foreplay in the first love scene!) which makes it difficult to believe that either character attaches deep sentimental value to the relationship in old age, as is suggested in later scenes. The most interesting relationship, therefore, is between Stravinsky and his saintly but sickly wife who is not a dimwit at all - she is, in fact, his most prized musical critic. In the most emotionally honest scene of the movie, when she confronts him about his affair with Chanel, she confesses that she is frightened of dying. In that moment, the complexity of a marriage is shown where betrayal, intimacy and sadness are felt in quick succession.

The Social Network

I was asked by a few friends and co-workers whether I'd recommend this movie to them. I found myself wondering if friends who aren't on Facebook would enjoy it. I wondered if certain factors played a part in my responses: Is this person something of a Luddite? Would the fact that Zuckerberg managed to shut the Harvard server down come across as an impressive feat, or would it mean nothing to this person? Is he disdainful of others who keep up with the Joneses? If he's not on Facebook but is still a hip techie would he still be interested in the story arc of friendship and betrayal? Would this person find intellectual property an interesting issue or is he somebody who thinks that the discourse is old hat and we live in a Wikileaky world of free information? Oh well, if I recommended this to you, or did the opposite, it was probably pretty arbitrary!

Other film bites: One Minute Film Reviews, Bad Lieutenant, Notes On Seeing Taika Waititi's Boy, Film Festival Snippets, Sofia Quentin R Crumb and Feminism...