Ilo Ilo Review by Frank L.

Director: Anthony Chen
Writer: Anthony Chen
Stars: Koh Jia Ler, Angeli Bayani, Tian Wen Chen

Singapore in 1997 was in the middle of a financial crisis which engulfed also many of its neighbours. Therefore its situation has some similarities to the events which overwhelmed much of Europe since 2008. Redundancies, suicides, investment in financial products not understood, are part of the familiar backdrop. Not so familiar to the Western world would be the idea of a family of no great income hiring a Filipino maid, Teresa, to look after the devious and unruly son, Jiale, aged about 10 years, even if the working mother is pregnant with a second child. In fact the family’s finances are as stretched as their living quarters are cramped. Into this far from happy family, Teresa, or “Terrie” as she suggests that she be called is the one point of stability. But as a migrant worker her lot of loneliness and financial vulnerability is palpable. However the family are in fact on the financial brink which makes the daily round of the need to make ends meet consume both of the parents particularly the father. The victim of their preoccupation of avoiding financial disaster is Jiale… a child who craves attention. He is an unpleasant and takes an instant dislike to Terrie. However Terrie and he find a sort of uneasy modus vivendi but the surrounding the economic decline will have consequences for them both.

Ilo Ilo, won for Chen the Camera d’Or for best début feature at Cannes 2013. Chen, who was brought up with a Filipino domestic servant from the age of 4 to 12, has created a sensitive piece which depicts the impotency of the migrant worker, working for a couple who are low down on the greasy pole of success. The central relationship is that of Terrie and Jiale as she tries to bring a modicum of decency to Jiale’s behaviour- no easy task. No doubt Chen’s own upbringing has helped him to be such an acute observer of the plight of the migrant worker as he depicts the various ways in Terrie’s calm, patience and manners are tested time and again by Jiale and from time to time by the mother.

The film depicts a very ordinary family who are out of their depth in the consumerist society in which they are not and he in particular is not adept at carving an economic niche. They are flotsam and jetsam in the system. Terrie as a migrant worker is even more so flotsam and jetsam. The story is unsettling. The society is unsettling. Perhaps this is the strength of the film because Singapore is one of the financial success stories post the Second World War. Chen shows another aspect of this success story which as far as I am aware is not often told. He depicts an economically unsuccessful family in Singapore in its everyday humdrumness and thereby makes an unsettling film which anyone who is interested in Singapore or migrant workers anywhere should see.