Loading ...Gay relationships, sex, orgy and drugs. These are the themes, Anniversary, a new short film by acclaimed Singaporean director Royston Tan and playwright-writer Alfian Sa’at explores. Although potentially controversial, Alfian tells Fridae in an exclusive interview why he thinks a warts-and-all depiction of gay people is needed.
Anniversary, a short film directed by Royston Tan and written by Alfian Sa’at, has been rated R21 without cuts by the censors and will have its premiere at the Love fundraising dinner organised by Action for AIDS (AFA) on Dec 4. 2009.
The 20-min film delves into the lives of Wai Kit, a 23-year-old undergrad who lives with his 27-year-old insurance agent male friend, Justin, as they approach their first anniversary with differing expectations and values shaped by their earlier relationship experiences. While Justin is described as being “remarkably idealistic, believing in the virtues of monogamy,” Wai Kit has been “in and out of relationships”. To complicate matters, Justin’s participation at a ‘party-and-play’ session just months before meeting Justin comes back to haunt him.
Commissioned by AFA, the film touches on the issue of ‘chemsex’ where ’sex-enhancing’ drugs are used by a certain segment of the gay community. Alfian, an acclaimed poet and playwright who is best known for his Asian Guys Trilogy, says the film hopes to “address a certain problem within the gay community.”
“You can go to a local IRC channel, and you’ll see how many nicknames have the words ‘chem’ or ‘wild’ appended to them. So we thought it’s time to bring this into the open, and have a real discussion about it. Because the more you pretend it doesn’t exist, the more you grant it an underground status, and then people go into denial mode.
“And the minute you go into denial, then you start to forget how these things you do in the shadows, in secret, can have such profound consequences on the life that you lead in broad daylight”.
Cast
Kelvin Ong as Wai Kit
Wai Kit is 23, strikingly good-looking and a guy in a local university. He has been aware of his sexuality ever since he was in Junior College, and has been ‘in and out of relationships’. His first love was a Junior institute mate, who eventually ‘turned straight’. Although the relationship only lasted half a year, it has left a deep mark on him, and his memories of it are filled with struggling against the distraction of heartbreak while studying for his exams, and contrasting himself with debased self-loathing against the girl his ex-male friend eventually chose as a partner.
Unlike Justin, Wai Kit has allowed this ‘first love’ to shape his attitude towards relationships in general. He sincerely believes, for example, that it has damaged him to some extent, and that his guarded approach to romance is thus justified. Consequently, Wai Kit invariably develops cold feet whenever any of his relationships reaches a six-month mark. He becomes seized with an irrational dread of abandonment and will initiate a breakup, even under the most promising of circumstances.
Wai Kit’s relationship with Justin is thus an anomaly for him- at the six month mark, Justin had begged him to stay on. Sometimes Wai Kit feels himself unworthy, he feels the incongruity between their divergent experiences when it comes to love.
A few months before meeting Justin, Wai Kit had stumbled into a group that held regular ‘party-and-play’ sessions, a term used for sex parties which are fueled by drugs and chemicals. Wai Kit had met the group where he engages in risky sex, in nihilistic pursuit of an elusive pleasure which is in fact the ultimate numbness.
Jae Leung as Jimmy
Jimmy is 19 and a polytechnic guy. He has been sexually active since he was 16.
There has always been a certain fatalism in him, and he has always believed that he would not live beyond thirty at most. Part of this is due to the fact that his social circle is composed of those his age; he cannot clearly imagine the lives of gay men thirty years and above. He believes they are invariably lonely. Jimmy’s fear of aging has its source in his sauna visits, where the sight of men-old enough to be his father-walking around in towels fills him with both pity and disgust.
Shane Mardjuki as Justin
Justin is 27 and an insurance agent and is out to his parents. He is only in his second relationship, his first one having lasted five years. Despite being in his late twenties, Justin is remarkably idealistic, believing in the virtues of monogamy. This he holds in distinction against a ’scene’ which he thinks is dominated by fatalistic myopia and short-term gratifications.
Justin is attractive, although his is a beauty that is gradually revealed, not instantly announced. One could describe this quality as something that ‘grows on you’.
The failure of his first relationship was a disillusioning blow. However, Justin has managed to guard himself against jadedness: he sees his prior relationship as a rehearsal for his “real” one with Justin. Justin met Wai Kit online and Wai kit’s teasing inaugural first-liner was: “You really believe there’s such a thing as the long haul?”
Official Website
http://www.anniversary.sg
