I had been meaning to catch Old Places twice when it was aired via OKTO TV station. I failed both time for reasons I could not recall.
So when I learnt that Library@Esplanade had scheduled to screen it on 14Jan2011, I made a mental note to catch it.
I was late. Two friends visited Singapore for the first time and I felt it was my duty to bring them to sample Hainanese Chicken Rice before seeing them off in a cab to Night Safari.
When I walked into the library, the seats placed in front of the screen were fully occupied with many more people standing by the wall behind. After I managed to find a spot to park myself and got into the rhythm of the film, I took peeks at the audience – mixed age groups.
Places after places of Singapore were flashed out accompanied with voices of various narrators – these narrators responded to the creative team‘s calls for suggestions on what parts of Singapore hold their prompt memories. Like the audience in front of the screen, the narrators were of mixed ages and backgrounds.
I think this film will go down history as one of the most significant informal archive of Singapore, by taking snapshots at relations between the physical spaces and the people. That was what I thought as I observed the audience watching the film closely, imagining each of us constructing our own relations with those places we recognised on the screen.
While many places were recognisable by most people (e.g. Tanjong Pagar train station), some were not. But all of them exhibited the evidence of time, and invoked in me the doubt on whether the memories they held would stand the test of time. One segment revealed to me that memories would not necessarily faded with disappearing spaces, but also with people moving through them. Narrator of Golden Mile complex, most likely much younger than me, walked us through the list of Thai activities that make Golden Mile complex buzzes these days.
My fond memory of Golden Mile Complex belongs to the 80s when it was THE place to catch all the popular mainland China films. Films like 高山下的花环、五朵金花、人到中年。。。
