My Magic

My Magic by Eric Khoo (2006) is the third movie I have watched from this director and is by far, having the most amount of interactive dialogue as compared to Be With Me (there is only 3 minutes worth of dialogue) and 12 Storeys (well, the grandma rattled on quite a lot in movie but it is more of a monologue).

I must say I was hoping for a happy ending and a promising future for the characters when I read the movie synopsis before watching the movie, but the twist at the end made me really sad – when the father Francis and son finally are able to spend a moment of peace together and relate their concern for each other, the father passed on. It was even sadder when the son had to cover his dead father’s eyes. When the father’s fingers twitched, like the son, I felt hopeful that Francis is not really dead and he would be alive again, yet it is merely an illusion the son had of his parents finally being reunited. It is truly bittersweet, Francis is able to be with his wife again and his suffering over the years has come to an end, but what would happen to his young son?

Out of all the movies I had watched over the years, this is the only film that I had watched which touches on the topic of kinship from a father’s point-of-view. Alike to many common themes in all forms of media, be it movies, dramas or songs, the movie brings out a universal theme again – all parents are willing to do anything for their children, and no matter how they express their love towards their children, parents always love their children. (Maybe the only exception would be the heartless mother in Nobody Knows by Hirokazu Koreeda.)

And after watching two of Eric Khoo’s films, the director’s style is getting more apparent to me, the use of food as means of connection with others, the blurring between the lines of the alive and the dead (the use of spirits in the movies, which looks just as humanly as humans), and the preferences of using marginal characters to tell stories. The performances of Bosco Francis carrying out the magic acts were slightly discomforting to me, the piercing of needles, eating of glass, and physical torture, oh man, all the things he would do to earn more money for his son! Also, Seet Keng Yew, who played the shy and kind hearted security guard in Be With Me transforms into the cruel masochistic Big Boss in My Magic, I had to take some time to absorb the contrast, as his performance as the security guard in Be With Me was deeply engrained in my memory.


References:
Zhao Wei Films – My Magic
My Magic
Eric Khoo’s My Magic to compete at Cannes