7 lessons from 7 Letters1 min read
Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe film anthology 7 Letters is a success. Critics like it. So do audiences, who have given it good word-of-mouth. Tickets for every screening at Capitol Theatre and the National Museum have been snatched up. The demand is so good, the film will get a limited run in seven Golden Village cinemas later this month.
7 Letters works as entertainment, but also as a piece of art that Singaporeans can hold up as a proper SG50 tribute – definitely not a fishcake with an SG50 sticker.
Composed of short works from seven film-makers, it stands between the “artsy” and the lowest-common denominator type of comedy or horror work.
What’s interesting – and disheartening – about the local movie scene is how rare mid-brow films like 7 Letters are.
Our films tend to go straight into the arthouse and festival circuit, or into mainstream cinemas. Festival films sometimes trickle into local cinemas, but these get a small number of screens and a short run.
When done right, mid-tier films combine the best of both worlds – substance with mass appeal – as 7 Letters obviously does.
Most Best Picture Oscar winners are middlebrow – think this year’s Birdman, last year’s 12 Years A Slave, or The King’s Speech (2010).
In Singapore, the field is sharply divided between the arthouse professionals (the Eric Khoos and the Anthony Chens, though they might dispute that label) and the kings of the commercial (the Jack Neos and the Gilbert Chans).
Why does this happen? Seven lessons can be extracted from the making of 7 Letters, and how it found that magical Middle Path.
Read the full article here>> via The Straits Times
Image Credit: mm2 Entertainment
