11:45 p.m. - 2004-02-26
this film is Well Travelled. It will go to film fests all over the world
well travelled
there was this guy who worked as a clerk in UPS/DHL/Fedex, everyday he filed papers and forms and handled parcels and phonecalls, so many things being sent here and there.
his father was a sailor. he worked on the ships. all he knew about his father were the postcards and photos of places he sporadically sent back on his travels. he never came back.
my friend here,he goes to the airport to look at planes and pple in the departure halls.
he sits at the beach and looks at the sea and ships passing by.
he envies the pple who are going to other places.
he listens to obscure new age rock in his rundown HDB flat. he says its because the music is spatial. he likes distances.
he looks at the blue sky and wonders at its wide expanse how far would it stretch.
in this film, we would have beautiful shots of Singapore, the clear blue sky, the orange sunsets... some industrial cranes reaching for the dark blue sky in twilight.
the guy talks about his father being a sailor, we would have shots of the sea and the tanker ships far away...
when the guy talks about reading about Japan, we would have shots of Liang court supermarket and the various jap candy and television pokemon.
he talks about never ever felt snow before and we would show him at Snow City mucking about, kicking the artifical snow and trying to taste it.
he said he wish he could drive so that he could cruise on route 66 in america like many of those road movies, we would show him in a taxi travelling on the wide open road, jalan bahar, the road near NTU that can be used as a landing strip.
he reads up travel magazines/brochures, attempts to learn different languages, and memorise little facts about interesting places, so as to prepare himself for his trip one day.
siberia.
some wolves in a black forest in a library book.
jack london.
earnest hemmingway in paris.
the long beautiful road near changi where pple could look at planes taking off and landing.
he's back in the office filling forms.
he fantasises about hiding in a DHL/UPS/Fedex crate, and being shipped off.
some weird ancient shopping centre: sembawang plaza or coronation centre.
would i miss this place one day.
Then he's there, in a busy mingling crowd, a nondescript kuala lumpur street. he once said that he wanted to travel all over the world and the map he hung up in his room had a red marker line jutting up north of this little spot with tiny print saying singapore.
then again, he's back in the office taking phonecalls from pple asking about pickup times for the thailand run. he puts the phone down, gets up and out, to the open air rooftop, which overlooks the sprawling shenton way buildings, he lights a cigarette and takes a deep breath.
