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2 March 2009 - One never has any mood to work on Mondays. Mondays, to me is the start of a 5-day work week that has you doing repetitive tasks; wake up in the morning, get read for work, go to work, come home tired, hang around the living room, sleep so one can wake up for work the next morning. That morning was different because it was First Takes night at The Substation. For those who are not familiar, The Substation organises a screening of short films by local film directors every first monday of each month. The programme manager is BK, a friendly bloke who welcomes anyone's works (as allowed by law).
I reached City Hall at ard 7pm. First Takes starts at 8pm so since I had lots of time to spare, I went to Funan's MacD for dinner. Ok, ok, straight to the films on show that night. I will talk about my most favourite. I voted for it and hope that it will be shown in Best of First Takes at the end of the year.
Platform 1932 is a documentary on Tanjong Pagar Railway station. The director, Nawwar Syahirah, made it for a school project. She wanted to show the rich history of the railway station and the people who grew up with and are related to the station. And she did it well. The documentary was informative and visual. I enjoyed watching the station master turned the trains around when they reached the end of the track. How did they do it? Well, they used a turn table. The story was also enjoyable because the director interviewed and featured different types of people who had their own unique sense of connection with the station. There was the station master, who still used the old type of pulley and key system during this current technological age. There was the convenience store owner and his son who had set up shop since the station's younger years. A man, whose father owned the railway station's only hotel; it was interesting watching him tell stories about a gurl he used to meet at the station and stories on the station being haunted. Then, there are these two boys who are part of a railway fan club. At first, I thought the club only had two members. hahaha. But documentary showed that it has a huge number of members who are mostly from Malaysia.
I chose the story as my favourite of the night because I can see that there was a lot of effort put into it. Even the titles were nicely designed, accompanied by a nice logo that represented a part of the station. The interviewees were of many different background so that added variety to the story. Information was also aplenty but not overwhelming. I never knew there were four statues that are part of the station. The director and her team did a wonderful job researching. The story had a nice flow. If the director wanted people to go to the station and just take in the atmosphere after watching her short film, well, she was successful. I certainly wanted to go to the station and walk around.
I feel that documentaries, like the one made by Nawwar Syahirah, are very important because it records and archives Singapore's history. Sometimes, we tend to progress too fast, leaving behind things that had touched our hearts when we were younger. I miss playgrounds that had sand, playing one leg catching when there was no PSP, throwing paper planes in class, etc. We need documentaries such as Platform 1932 to share our stories on how we lived our lives, how things were during our times, with the younger generation...
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