Words by Lizzy Tan.
Film is tricky. The medium always reveals a philosophy about looking – about how the viewer should relate to the subject on screen. More often than not, the ‘male gaze’ is a shorthand for a particular kind of way of looking: women as spectacle, offered up to the viewer.
Director Brian Toh’s dance films ‘Iwishyoustayed’ (2022) and ‘MAKEMECRY’ (2023) invoke this dynamic as a throughline. One of Toh’s earlier works, ‘Iwishyoustayed’ deliberately addresses domestic violence ‘from a male perspective.’ There’s a steady current of violence propelling the work – Nur Arianty pulls away from co-star Jay Goh’s approaches and is forcefully grabbed by the neck in a later scene. It’s uncomfortable to watch, which doesn’t make it less real.
Where ‘Iwishyoustayed’ is most confident is in its lighting and colour. Yellow colour fields are pierced with single red lights, a motif repeated in a living room, stairwell and the performers’ costumes. Moody pale blues of a dusky room deepen to midnight as Goh stands in the night sea. Switching between shaky, handheld close-ups on the dancers’ hands and faces and a wide lens contributes to the tension. What we are meant to feel is unclear – outrage or pity? Is it fair to humanise abusers? Should anything be off-limits in art?
‘MAKEMECRY,’ made a year later, follows ‘a woman summoning tears on command’ to portray the ‘director’s grief’, not her own. It opens with a stunning shot of the chalky Seven Sisters cliffs with dancer-choreographer Clara Luna Nordahl crouching in a low tide. The film’s domestic shots are richly coloured in jewel tones and soft, diffused light – Vermeer in motion. We have some clues about the film’s conflict (a positive pregnancy test, Misoprostol tablets) and a sense of Nordahl’s emotional landscape (framed upside down, hanging off bars).
The final sequence – four minutes of Nordahl cycling between crying and laughing – is a test of patience. Perhaps discomfort is the point, though it feels a bit on the nose. For most of the film, Nordahl is seen from a distance or at oblique, voyeuristic angles – we look at her. In the crying-laughing sequence, the camera pivots to meet her dead-on – we confront her. Usually, such shots signal a conversation or another character’s point of view, but Nordahl has been alone throughout. Visually compelling and excellently lit, ‘MAKEMECRY’ undermines itself by forcing emotional intensity instead of trusting its ambient strengths.
Does an audience ever have the freedom to look in film? As director, Toh is responsible for both the bigger strokes (plot, actors, structure) we can’t escape and the creative choices (colour, lighting, framing) that give us room to look for ourselves – the latter is where his eye is sharpest. The gaze is always, ultimately, the director’s.
CREDITS
Starring Jay Goh, Nur Arianty
Director: Brian Toh Xun Hao
Producers: Renee Ong, Jastine Tan
Cinematographer: Jastine Tan
1st AD: ZoeyLee
1st Camera Asst./Gaffer: Eugene Voo
Grip: Taufiq
Art Director: Lizzie Quek
Props/Art Asst.: Isabella Yuki
HMU & Wardrobe: Hazirah Ibrahim
Production Asst & Driver: Rendy Yau
Production Asst.: Issac Chia
MAKEMECRY CREDITS
Directed by Brian Toh
Choreography & Performance: Clara Luna Nordahl
Produced by Dalton Scott & Yizhen Li
DoP: Alvin Jai
Gaffer & 1st AC: Jastine Tan
1st AD: Alexandra Cane
Art Director: Sofia Yelistarkhova
Festival Cut Editor: Sophie Huang
First Cut Editor: Tohtohdile
Rough Cut Editor: Richard Prayoga
“Riverbed” composed by Jonathan Yang
Equipment Sponsor: Grey Moth
In association with Cowsomething, Scapegoat Productions, Fluffi!