A
provocative film acted by real street kids, 15 exposes a gritty side of
modern-day Singapore life that will blow your mind Growing up in the
worlds most oppressive nanny state can be bad for your mental health,
and 15 tells it like it is. 26-year-old Royston Tans social satire has
given local censors their biggest ever headache by focusing on
Singapores problem boys: the ones from broken homes, the ones who
smuggle drugs, the dropouts, the ones who obsess on suicide and tend to
die young. But what could have been a grungy social-realist tract is
actually a dizzying collage of teenage experienceTan keeps scenes short
and stylized, plasters the screen with captions and throws in everything
from animation to fast rewinds to keep things cooking. Much of it is
universal: gangs, video-games, bad role models, fake tattoos, crypto-gay
bonding, piercings, self-pity, amateur rappingbut Tan doesnt shrink
from the dark side: he looks at teen suicides with wicked black humour,
confronts the reality of self-harm, admits that boys prostitute
themselves for pocket moneyFrenetic, violent and funny; 15 is an
electrifiying account of life on the streets.
|