In between commotions

I wish I could write the way Lee Ang directs.

I'm not very familiar with his works. After all, I've only seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Brokeback Mountain. But it seems to me that they're both quiet movies, and I like them.

Looking at his films, you realise that many storytellers are insecure. They grab you by the collar, jabbing their finger at every point that they want you to notice. Nothing is to be missed or overlooked. When everything is significant, nothing is significant.

His storytelling is sparse. There're many pauses in his stories. But that's the way life is. Many things are revealed in pockets of silence, not commotion. Some stories are just meant to be quiet. When you talk so loudly, I cannot hear your story.

Many viewers let their guard down and drop their defences in the face of such plainness, so that when the emotional knock comes, they crumble.

And then, you realise that Lee Ang is a man with immense confidence in what he has to say. Some may think that it is unfair that his work did not win Best Picture, but the Oscars is a Western yardstick. It rewards what the Western world values, and quietness is always undervalued. I'm just glad that people do recognise that he is a good storyteller, that's all.