stranger eyes
DIRECTOR: Yeo Siew Hua
126 MINS, singapore, taiwan, france, usa, 2024, SUBTITLED
Official Selection, venice international Film Festival 2024
A middle-class couple trying to solve the sudden disappearance of their toddler daughter, receive DVDs with recordings of their daily lives. Singapore police sets up surveillance around their home to catch the stalker, but the family begins to fall apart under scrutiny from all sides. Gifted Singaporean writer-director Yeo Siew Hua’s sharp psychological thriller stars Lee Kang-Sheng, famed for his Tsai Ming-Liang films. Reflecting on alienation, watching and being watched, where what is seen cannot be unseen, and how this shapes our identity and subjectivity. Through the scrutiny of a glass darkly it seems, ‘you just have to watch someone close enough and keep your eyes on him. At some point, even if he’s not a criminal, he will turn into one’.
(CURATED BY CHUTI CHANG; NOTES BY MARIE-PIERRE RICHARD)
