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Anthony Chen: Singaporean reflects on maids and memories in 'Ilo Ilo'
Anthony Chen: (AFP/Mandy Cheng)For Singaporean director Anthony Chen, his award winning film Ilo Ilo, which won the Camera dâOr at the Cannes film festival in 2013, was a way to humanize the plight of migrant workers
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Anthony Chen: (AFP/Mandy Cheng) (AFP/Mandy Cheng)
Anthony Chen: (AFP/Mandy Cheng)
For Singaporean director Anthony Chen, his award winning film Ilo Ilo, which won the Camera d'Or at the Cannes film festival in 2013, was a way to humanize the plight of migrant workers.
'A lot of Singaporeans would think 'Oh they come to Singapore, they get a better life,'' Anthony said. ''They get paid good wages, because if you convert it into pesos it's a lot of money. They could go back and buy land and a house and lots of savings'.'
'It's very much not the case,' he said. 'I think it's about treating [migrant workers] with decency ' about treating them as humans instead of just thinking of them as servants.'
Some newcomers to Indonesia, especially those from the West, find the idea of having a maid in the family hilarious, if not obscene.
Perhaps it is because the practice of having a household helper has long since ended in developed nations, save for a very few wealthy exceptions. At times, it is easy to see how the line between employing household helpers and slavery can be blurry.
The experience of growing up with a pembantu or suster (nanny) is part of the lives and childhoods of some Indonesians.
Memories of this time can be sweet, which is what Anthony has elegantly captured in Ilo Ilo.
Set against the background of the Asian economic crisis in the late 1990s, Ilo Ilo tells the story of a middle-class Singaporean family and its Filipino maid, Teresa or 'Terry'.
The movie's focus is on the family's wayward son, although the mother and father are also portrayed vividly, struggling to keep their heads above water.
Here lies another ingenuity of Ilo Ilo.
While many, especially Indonesians, view Singapore as a dazzling cosmopolitan metropolis, the movie shows another Singapore: Life inside limited living quarters, the contrast between urban landscapes and enduring traditions ' and the occasional frustration of coping in times of trouble.
According to Anthony, the movie was based partly on his experience growing up with a Filipino maid.
'She worked in my household for eight years. When I was four she came; when she left I was 12,' Anthony recalled.
'It is inspired by my childhood, but it did dramatize a little of the characters and the events. A lot of it happened, but I wasn't so naughty a kid when I was growing up. In fact I was such a good kid.' He laughs. 'I am 29 now and I haven't smoked a cigarette ever in my life ' that's how good a kid I am.'
Nevertheless, Ilo Ilo is a movie close to his heart. In fact, it led to his reunion with the real 'Aunty Terry'.
'When the film got selected for Cannes, a lot of Filipinos were very excited, and after the film won this huge awards it created even more excitement,' Anthony says.
A public relations specialist in the Philippines, was inspired to start searching for Terry, reaching out to local television and radio stations who broadcast messages to reach out to Anthony's former maid.
The search took only two weeks, much faster than expected. When Anthony went to meet Terry with his brother, he discovered that he and his family had been remembered.
'What was really moving is that she kept all the pictures she had of us and our family and all through the years she kept them in a pouch,' Anthony said. 'She said my mom actually gave her the pouch. Wherever she goes ['¦] she would carry the pouch with all our photographs.'
In the end, it is hard not to like the tough, practical mother, Hwee Leng (Yeo Yann Yann); the kind, slightly awkward father Teck (Chen Tian Wen); the son, Jiale (Koh Jia Ler); and, of course, the resourceful and dignified Terry (Angeli Bayani).
For Ilo ilo steers away skillfully from offering one-dimensional characters and reveals their vulnerability through sensible yet moving scenes.
Amid all the human emotions, it retains the wider socio-economic context, including the inequality and the often troubled position of migrant domestic workers.
