13th(2011)
TAN Chui Mui
Azam comes back to his village, and looks for his childhood friend Ali. Ali and his wife Minah invites Azam for fishing and a midnight picnic on a small island. Towards the end of the night, they have a game of holding breath underwater for 3 minutes, and Azam is never seen again¡¦
At the village by the seashore, Azam, a singer with diminishing prospects, visits his hometown and his best friend Ali for the first time in 30 years. He goes out for an offshore fishing with Ali and his wife Minah in the middle of the night. At the break of the day, Minah jumps into the sea to prove that she can dive for three minutes. Minah floats back after three minutes and Azam, who jumped in after Minah to imitate her, never returns back to the surface.
Year without a Summer hesitates to give a clear and logical explanation of the story,. Just like its title, the tight narrative structure is also absent from the film as well. Although a logical narrative is missing from the story, in its place, there are weltering waterlike images and a very characteristic atmosphere instead. A promising Asian women director TAN Chui Mui creates the blue ocean, traditional fairy tales, mysterious creatures and boar hunting into cinematic moments and slides the present time into past in mysterious ways of the spatiotemporal experience. In doing so, she beautifully and sympathetically expresses the existence of impossible things or life and the desire for such things with outstanding visual apparatus. (KWON Eun-sun)
Synopsis
Azam comes back to his village, and looks for his childhood friend Ali. Ali and his wife Minah invites Azam for fishing and a midnight picnic on a small island. Towards the end of the night, they have a game of holding breath underwater for 3 minutes, and Azam is never seen again¡¦
Program Note
At the village by the seashore, Azam, a singer with diminishing prospects, visits his hometown and his best friend Ali for the first time in 30 years. He goes out for an offshore fishing with Ali and his wife Minah in the middle of the night. At the break of the day, Minah jumps into the sea to prove that she can dive for three minutes. Minah floats back after three minutes and Azam, who jumped in after Minah to imitate her, never returns back to the surface.
Year without a Summer hesitates to give a clear and logical explanation of the story,. Just like its title, the tight narrative structure is also absent from the film as well. Although a logical narrative is missing from the story, in its place, there are weltering waterlike images and a very characteristic atmosphere instead. A promising Asian women director TAN Chui Mui creates the blue ocean, traditional fairy tales, mysterious creatures and boar hunting into cinematic moments and slides the present time into past in mysterious ways of the spatiotemporal experience. In doing so, she beautifully and sympathetically expresses the existence of impossible things or life and the desire for such things with outstanding visual apparatus. (KWON Eun-sun)
TAN Chui MuiTAN Chui Mui
TAN Chui Mui¡¯s debut feature film Love Conquers All (2007) received numerous awards like Tiger Award from the 36th International Film Festival Rotterdam. She is actively involved in the Malaysian independent film scene working as producer, editor, script writer and occasionally actress. In 2004, she set up Da Huang Pictures with her colleagues. Her much awaited second feature called Year without a Summer was screened in various film festivals such as International Film Festival Tokyo Filmex 2010, Cinemanila International Film Festival 2010 and International Film Festival Rotterdam 2011.