Yeo Siew Hua’s newest feature film is as audacious and ambitious as the 35th Singapore International Film Festival, President Daryl Cheong writes.

Singapore’s wunderkind has returned. Not too long ago, he clinched the prestigious Golden Leopard award at the 71th Locarno International Film Festival for A Land Imagined (2018). This year, Yeo Siew Hua follows up with his latest release: Stranger Eyes. Premiering in competition at the Venice International Film Festival under the Main Competition segment, this achievement cannot be understated. Not only is this the first Singaporean feature film to compete in the section, the work also stands against films by international auteurs such as Pedro Almodóvar, Luca Guadagnino, Wang Bing, and Dea Kulumbegashvili. The film then travelled to other established festivals and awards, and most recently achieved six nominations at the Golden Horse Awards–the Oscars of the Chinese-speaking world.

Understandably, there are a lot of expectations for the film’s premiere in Singapore.

Reserving its Southeast Asian premiere for the home festival that developed Yeo’s craft, Stranger Eyes opened the 35th Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) last night. The festival opened in the presence of President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and his wife Jane Ittogi, and the Minister of Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo. The Screen Icon Award was also presented to legendary Taiwanese actor Lee Kang-sheng.

In Stranger Eyes, a young couple’s (Wu Jian-He and Anicca Panna) daughter disappears and strange video recordings of the family’s daily activities appear at their doorstep, and a thrilling journey to unravel the truth ensues. Alongside a contradictory grandmother (Vera Chen), a neighbour with suspicious intentions (Lee Kang-sheng), and a police officer preaching procedure (Pete Teo), the film is further complexified with its growing web of differing intentions from each character.

Where the film is particularly captivating and worthwhile are the philosophical musings not unlike Yeo’s earlier works. Central to the film lies two concerns: the motivations and ramifications of surveillance and voyeurism, and whether one deserves (or even wants) to be a parent. The depth of these ideas demonstrate Yeo’s background in philosophy, where characters take unique and subtly-different positions vis-à-vis each theme.

Considering the paternalistic society of Singapore that can be read allegorically by the film’s depiction of parenthood, and the persistent state of surveillance here, the film’s reflection of political realities is also of note. While rarely adopting overt criticisms of Singapore’s governance, Yeo gives enough to push discourse on reflections of Singapore through the silver screen.

Unlike other works examining voyeurism, however, Stranger Eyes perhaps does not connect its themes and concerns of surveillance with the larger ideas of parenthood as succinctly and clearly. Considering the postcolonial consequences of surveillance in Michael Haneke’s Cache (2005), the nature of love rooted in gaze and voyeurism suggested in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s A Short Film About Love (1988), and even the pleasure and pains of voyeurism itself in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954), Yeo’s film treats its philosophies of voyeurism and parenthood mostly separate. Attempts for synthesis of these ideas remain lacking, particularly by the film’s ending that strays towards unfamiliar grounds of melodrama in its hopes for changes in toxic cycles.

Given its mystery elements, one might also be prepared to treat the film as a thriller. Yet, in regarding this as a work of genre, disappointment would ensue. Just as in A Land Imagined where a real answer of whodunit is ironically a red herring for the filmmaker’s exploration, Stranger Eyes is more concerned with the boundaries, tensions, and fluidity of real/unreal, seen/unseen, and desired/disdained. 

Treating Yeo’s work as genre renders a disservice to the viewing experience. There will be no pleasure in the eventual answering of the mystery. Instead, the film tells us to immerse ourselves in the impossibilities of certain knowledge. Just as surveillance and voyeurism prove to be inadequate tools for understanding a person and empathy towards the other, the greatest act of rebellion a cinema-goer can do in our society is to reject arrogance in presuming knowledge. 

Thrillers presume the presence of answers. Accept that there are none.

Most outstanding in Yeo’s newest works is the elements reflecting the video art background of the director. Through mediators of gaze and seeing (such as laptop screens, CCTVs, and phone screens), we are introduced to different perspectives and characters–whether objective or subjective.

In a moment where the grandmother looks at her neighbours through binoculars, an unreal moment occurs: In a bedroom, a woman pivots about her bed and window in a peculiar dance. Neither explained nor treated abnormally from the other sights, this moment of almost-surrealism creates a new shade of experience through the premise of a Singaporean public housing setting. Yet if meaning must be imposed, the reminders of the grandmother’s own dancing background conjures questions if the woman is a representation of her. This interpretation might not be outlandish in a film about mirroring identities. Furthermore, considering the film’s concerns with whether one wants to be a parent, the repetition of the girl’s dance invites wonder into what it reflects of the young grandmother’s own emotional state.

But, without specific and extra attention, the adventure of speculation hinted here invites the audience into the uncertain meaning-making through voyeurism.

The film grapples with many themes, different performance styles, and varying socio-political baggage. While not always effective or complete in its exploration, Stranger Eyes is still commendable for its audacity to seek unity in disparate ideas. Special attention must be paid to the formic experimentations now so expected of a Yeo film. 

While I was not professionally obliged to write a review of the film since I was invited to the screening in my private capacity, being present alongside the rest of the film community that I care so deeply about and has cared so deeply for me in my film journey, I am reminded of the need to support our ever-developing industry. Stranger Eyes reflects the SGIFF’s ambition to reflect the zeitgeist of the region and our local scene. Without our active involvement to “hold space”, as Chairperson Boo Junfeng says in his opening address, for the films and artists, our community would not be where it is today.

Stranger Eyes runs again today, 29 November (Friday) at 4pm at the National Museum of Singapore. Get your tickets at https://sistic.com.sg/events/sgiff2024. The screening is followed by a Q&A with the director and actors.