Before We Fall In Love Again

James Lee films are slow and indulgent.

There, it's been said, and it is true. Slow, because they are filled with shots that are long and static, with little action; indulgent because they never pass up an opportunity to expound Lee's personal philosophies. Fifteen minutes into the Malaysian indie director's latest feature, a black-and-white film noir called Before We Fall in Love Again (which was simultaneously released with his other feature Things We Do Before We Fall in Love), one begins to believe the critics. Everything is left unanswered; every line is muttered huskily for artistic value. It is all pretension.

But the film plods along resolutely; through subtle dips and rises, scaling a barely detectable climax. Then, it plunges into an ending that is startling yet strangely unsurprising. Suddenly, all the afore-viewed disjointedness, mystery, characters and metaphors resonate so strongly that one cannot help but affirm the genius of Lee's latest labour of love.

The film begins with Chang (Chye Chee Keong) waking up to another morning without his wife. Ling Yue (Amy Len) left him a month ago, without prior warning, without discernible reason, without a trace--until her jilted lover Tong (singer-songwriter Pete Teo) shows up. Together, the men sift through their memories of Ling Yue, uncovering more with each flashback of a woman they both loved. When the two find a letter addressed to her first love, they embark on a mini road trip in search of the intended recipient. In finding him, they might find much more.

Like Betrayal, the Harold Pinter play that inspired this film (and Things We Do), Before We Fall in Love Again traces the dissolution of a love triangle through flashbacks. But while its begetter developed in reverse-chronological order, Lee skips at random through scenes of Ling Yue's relationships with the two men of her life. And while Betrayal took a wider view of an awkward situation inhabited by three, Lee makes Ling Yue the focal point around which the situation revolves.

Amy Len is a gem. She evolves along with the story--evolving even as she descends on an escalator with a smile that is at once happy, wry, and vengeful. Very slowly, with each flashback, Lee strips away the veils that obscure Ling Yue from us, until an arresting monologue snatches away the remaining layers. After a bizarre incident with Ling Yue's first love at a nightclub, both lover and husband learn that perhaps her love is not theirs to take, and certainly not theirs to own. In spite of all the professions and demonstrations of love, their intimacy with Ling Yue never transcends beyond the casual cup of coffee that starts all relationships.

Compelling and powerful, yet so achingly personal, Before We Fall In Love Again is a brutal examination of love, through infidelity. Lee has forced us to reflect on some of the things that we should learn before going to the whole roses-and-chocolates thing. The same forces that keep lovers crucially apart, evidently, are the forces that keep them interminably bound.

Elroi is a closet swearer who often confuses 'genetic' with 'genital'.

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