Interview: Tan Chui Mui on the making of Belenggu: Barbarian Invasion

The metafictional narrative focuses on actress-on-hiatus Moon Lee who is a full-time mom and divorcée. Desperate to regain her sense of self, she jumps at the chance of a comeback and reteams with her long-time collaborator Roger Woo in a martial arts film. A retreat to an idyllic seaside town however looks quite different from what one might imagine as she struggles to balance her commitment to the back-breaking training with her responsibility to her beautiful nightmare of a son.

Belenggu: Barbarian Invasion marks Tan’s return to the director’s chair for a feature-length film after 2010’s Year Without A Summer. But being away does not mean that she was keeping idle. Between these cinematic gems, she had fostered her know-how as a filmmaker and the film industry at large as she spent three years working in China, spearheaded the Next New Wave initiative and founded the SeaShorts Film Festival—on top of raising her child.

You mentioned that your films are usually about something you are concerned with at a particular period of time. What was it that concerned you that led to Belenggu: Barbarian Invasion?

It wasn’t a recent concern but it became extra urgent after I became a mother. Being a parent means sacrificing what is important to you. Parents have to give up a lot of things. Some have to give up their dreams so that they can provide for their children. In my case, though it hasn’t come to that extent, I do have to give up a lot of my time in a sense that I can’t really write my scripts or make films as much as I’d like to. Even now I still have problems dividing my time between my work and my son.

There’s also a quote of you saying: “Motherhood is loss of control of my body—because not only the child, but society itself suddenly has power or control over you.”

As a mother, you are always forced to feel guilty. Mothers are expected to take care of the children and always at fault if anything goes wrong. I also feel like there are so many schools of thought when it comes to parenting. There’s the type that tells you to discipline your children and to really set the boundaries, and there’s one that pressures you to fulfil all their needs and let them be free. If you don’t adhere to either of these standards, your children are doomed. After a while, I gave up on all these parenting tips because they don’t always apply to everyone.

What about Moon? It seems like she’s just unable to put her foot down with her son, letting him control her life instead of the other way around. What’s her headspace like?

I think there are all types of mothers. People like to assume that a woman automatically knows how to be a mother just because she gives birth but that’s not true. No one is ever ready to be a mother. Everyone has to learn. My producer Woo Ming Jin and I created Moon from our experiences. In the first half of the film, we wanted to portray Moon as someone who is quite incapable of being a mother; she’s overwhelmed. But in the second half of the film, we start seeing the mother-son relationship evolve as she gains more control of her body, her life.

So the martial arts element in the movie is a symbol of a woman regaining control of her life?

I think, in the end, the film is not about mothers or women. I mean, the men can use martial arts to regain control of their bodies too. You can use many things to do that. Some people take charge of their own bodies by learning calligraphy, dance or yoga. You just pick one, train your body and get better. Martial arts to me is very interesting; it’s like a moving meditation. It’s a bit more extreme than other sports because there’s a real interaction with other people but in the end it is about knowing your own body.

The film is heavily influenced by Bourne Identity, down to its martial arts design. Can you tell us more about that?

We chose Bourne Identity because of the similar premises of the two films. It starts with someone who doesn’t know who he is and Belenggu: Barbarian Invasion, at its core,  deals with the same question that is “who am I?” As for the choreography, I like the fact that Bourne Identity uses more realistic fighting styles with Kali, which is a Filipino martial art that works with weapons a lot but can also be applied bare-handed; and Krav Maga, a military training system that involves self-defence techniques with and without weapons.

What are the challenges in directing effective action sequences?

Filming the fight scenes was quite complicated especially when we had to pick the fighting style. We also needed to figure out how to show it, to frame it and to edit it. The discussion took quite long. Our action director James Lee, who has done quite a lot of action films before, did the storyboarding and most of the shot planning. Afterwards, we moved on to the rehearsal part.

On the blurring of reality and, for lack of a better word, fantasy: why did you decide on this style of storytelling?

I didn’t have an exact reference but there are a few filmmakers I like who often use similar concepts. One of them is Hong Sang-Soo. He makes a lot of films that seem like his own autobiography—films about a film director or a film lecturer and the people around him. I also admire Mohsen Makhmalbaf who made A Moment Of Innocence and Abbas Kiarostami who directed Close-Up.

Belenggu: Barbarian Invasion opens in theatres nationwide today.