Singapore’s Nelson Yeo Debuts at Locarno With an Uncanny Love Triangle Inspired by Classic Chinese Cinema
variety.comMomo Film Co, one of Singapore’s most prominent production-distribution outfits. Indeed, Yeo’s film feels uniquely Singaporean in its reflection of the complex psychic state of the country, which can teeter between a coastal dreamland and a cloistered urban nightmare.
Before trying his hand at filmmaking, Yeo studied animation. “My first project centered on a character of One-Armed Swordsman known from many Hong Kong martial arts films,” he recalls.
We can see the influence of the director’s animation background in the film’s plasticity and fluidity, especially in sequences shot in cult Singapore old school luna park – Haw Par Villa – featuring supernatural creatures from Chinese and Western mythologies. “I approached making this film as I would my short films,” Yeo told Variety at Locarno.
Before making his debut feature, Yeo made multiple short films such as “Mary, Mary, So Contrary” (2019) which repurposes and manipulates excerpts from Fei Mu’s 1948 classic “Springtime in a Small Town” to weave a phantasmagoric narrative of a Chinese woman named Ma Li who dreams she is a Caucasian woman named Mary.
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