Wet Season

Ling teaches Mandarin at a high school in Singapore. It is a lesson everyone considers unnecessary; the students are not interested and neither is the administration. At home she has been trying for years to have a child, is undergoing treatment and gives herself the injections; her husband has stopped taking part. She also cares for her paralysed father in law. In class a student, Wei Lun, comes closer to her. Through the monsoon the rain does not stop. Anthony Chen writes and directs. Yeo Yann Yann plays Ling. Chen's first film, Ilo Ilo, won the Caméra d'Or at Cannes, and this is his second feature. That Ling is Malaysian sits inside the narrative: a foreigner in Singapore, a daughter in law at home, the teacher of a subject the school does not value. Slightly outside everywhere. The relationship at the centre is not romantic and the film does not justify it; what it shows is where need and a boundary cross. The rain is constant and is not atmosphere; it is used as a physical pressure that narrows the room to move. Yeo Yann Yann was named best actress at the Golden Horse Awards for this part. Who it is for: viewers who like Southeast Asian cinema and slow, quiet drama. Who it is not for: the subject is uncomfortable, the pace is very slow, and the narrative rescues none of its characters.