WE ARE ALL STRANGERS World Cinema

Thirteen years in the making, WE ARE ALL STRANGERS serves as the ambitious concluding chapter of Anthony Chen’s (ILO ILO, WET SEASON) Growing Up trilogy, reuniting him with frequent collaborators Yeo Yann Yann and Koh Jia Ler. The first-ever Singaporean film to be selected for the Berlinale Main Competition, Chen’s perceptive lens finds poetry and beauty in everyday life, setting its opening moments at an unassuming yet bustling food market where hawker Boon Kiat (Andi Lim in a modest, emotionally tender turn) serves up Hokkien shrimp noodles, while neighboring bar waitress Bee Hwa (a charismatic Yeo Yann Yann) banters with her Tiger Beer-drunk patrons for tips. Kiat’s 18-year-old son Junyang (Koh Jia Ler) dreams of a future with his girlfriend Lydia (Regene Lim), a budding pianist from a middle-class home, as they navigate a temporary separation during his compulsory military service in the Singapore Army. Unexpected news comes, setting in motion the serendipitous ensemble under one roof, as dreams turn into responsibilities and the promise of a better future is tested by the crushing reality of economic survival. Under Chen’s keen eye for the lyrical and cinematographer Teoh Gay Hian’s vibrant mise-en-scene, time expands and compresses with hefty, earnest melodrama as the minutiae of mundanity and domesticity coalesce into a panoramic tableau and love letter to working class Singapore. –Anna Li