Through the peeping hole
When it comes to its exploration of the theme of voyeurism, there is a lot about Yeo Siew Hua’s Stranger Eyes that could make one instantly recall Alfred Hitchcock. For instance, the Rear Window-like obsessive observation of and suspicions about neighbours across the building. Or an eccentric Psycho-like mother-son duo and the overwhelming fetish for people watching.
However, what makes the film stand apart is the way it intertwines the idea of surveillance and personal privacy with the challenges and responsibilities, insecurities, vulnerabilities and ineptitude of parenthood. The idea of keeping a protective eye on the child and the exploration of the distance between a parent and child, a legacy of sorts, gives the film emotional heft and poignancy.
It kicks off with a young couple’s—Junyang (Chien-Ho Wu) and Peiying (Anicca Panna)—baby daughter going missing from the playground. Simultaneously, recordings of their daily life, and private moments, covertly filmed by a stranger, start getting delivered to their doorstep. The needle of suspicion falls on the neighbour Wu (Lee Kang-sheng in a brilliantly layered performance).
Meanwhile, the police set up a surveillance system to catch the culprit. However, the search for the pervert also leads, unexpectedly, to some deeply buried secrets and lies even as the scrutiny and stalking acquire an unforeseen inter-generational dimension—the inheritance of surveillance so to speak. The Singapore-Taiwan-France-US co-production premiered in the main competition section in Venice and was the opening film for Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and the Singapore International Film Festival. It also played recently at the Marrakech International Film Festival in the Special Screenings section.
On the one hand, the film focuses on what’s slowly turning out to be a universal urban reality, being watched and our actions being monitored all the time. How much of this alarming pervasiveness is borne out of necessity and safety and security concerns and how much is it an intrusion of personal freedom and basic human rights? The act of stealthily watching someone brings to light another urban contradiction, of being incredibly lonely in the crowd, trying to fill the boundless stretch of time by taking a peep into the lives of others.
It is also a comment on the real as opposed to an image of it. How we make do with the latter in the absence of actual people, relationships and friendships around us, as though filling up the human voids in our lives with copies and replicas. No wonder Stranger Eyes presents seeing and being seen as two sides of the same coin with consequences for both parties. However meddling and invasive, it’s nonetheless a bond between the two. Tenuous and strange, disturbing, dangerous and menacing amid the alienation, apathy and distractions of the urban jungle.
Most interesting is the way Stranger Eyes captures the fetish of people to constantly be on the camera, and in the public gaze, especially in these Instagram-selfie-driven times. To every “I see you”, there’s “I want to be seen”. Does one even have an identity if one is not looked at? Recognition and validation are indeed all.
Simultaneously with the deep dive into the idea of gaze, the film also grapples with what it is to raise a child and whether some people are better off not having kids. In dealing with all these ambiguities, Siew Hua spins a well-paced, taut thriller that keeps the audience guessing and on edge of their seats. The cinematography by Hideho Urata plays brilliantly with the spaces—the interiority and claustrophobia as opposed to the outer expanse where you stand exposed. The sound design of Duu-Chih Tu and Tse Kang Tu uses incidental sound to great sinister effect.
Most fascinating is the twist in the tale that reveals the unexpected interconnectedness of the characters. Siew Hua turns the tables on us as the narrative moves towards the climax. Who is the observer and who is being observed? That truly is the unpredictable question the film leaves us with.
Cinema Without Borders
In this weekly column, the writer introduces you to powerful cinema from across the world
Film: Stranger Eyes