By Christopher Khoo
SINGAPORE — This is one movie that embraces you with its heartbreakingly beautiful musical score and its powerful affirmation that human friendships can transcend catastrophes, time and distance. And as one sits there watching the final credits roll at the end, one becomes all the more convinced of how beauty and the strength of human love all originate from the God who loves us.
The Singapore animated film, “The Violinist”, which is currently showing in Singapore, won the Cristal Award at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France this June.
The award, for Singaporean director Ervin Han and Spanish co-director, animation veteran Raul Garcia, is the highest honour in one of the world’s most prestigious animation festivals. The movie also received the SACEM Award for Best Original Soundtrack in a Feature Film.
It spans decades of Singapore and Malaya’s history, covering the years of colonial rule, the Japanese Occupation and the troubled post-war years, and follows the life of an affluent Singaporean Peranakan girl, Fei, and her friendship with an orphan boy, Kai, who is taken in by the family maid.
The movie starts in the present with a Spanish reporter interviewing a once-famous violinist, the elderly Madam Lee, on why she used the same violin for her performances over the years. Her story is then told in flashbacks.
We then see Madam Lee as the young Fei, a promising violinist, preparing to put on her first performance at the British Governor’s house. However, her violinist partner is suddenly taken ill and she is faced with the prospect of foregoing a much-anticipated event.
This is when Kai, who has been secretly receiving lessons from Fei’s violin teacher, offers to step in as her violinist partner. His unexpectedly stellar performance is received with much appreciation, especially when it is revealed that he is extremely musically gifted and can play by ear.
What follows is a strong and enduring musical partnership between Fei and Kai as they perform at various events in Singapore including in high-class concert halls and for sweaty labourers along the Singapore River.
However, their friendship is severely tested when war breaks out in Malaya and Singapore and Kai decides to follow resistance fighter Lim Bo Seng in his anti-Japanese movement. Kai leaves Singapore, but not before composing a section of his Sunset Sonata, the hauntingly beautiful violin piece which is woven into the movie. He hands his violin and composition to Fei for her safekeeping before he leaves.
The movie then follows Fei as she lives through the war years, clinging on to the hope that one day Kai will return to complete his composition and that they could perform it together.
After the war ends and when she still does not hear of Kai, Fei decides to be the best violinist she can be and perform around the region, hoping that one day she can meet Kai again. Each time she hears a fleeting strain of music from his unfinished sonata, such as at a children’s home in Indonesia, or sees the shadowy figure of an audience member watching her being photographed by the media, she believes she is about to be reunited with him.
The movie is a strong testament to the enduring bonds of friendship despite war and hardship, as well as the power of music to forge such bonds. And I feel that at the end of the day, it really points to two great gifts that God has given us – the gift of relationship and the gift of inspiring music.
Do Fei and Kai eventually meet in the end? Does Kai eventually complete the Sunset Sonata that he started composing before the war, and will the two eventually perform the completed work together?
Watch the movie to find out.
“The Violinist” is currently showing in Singapore cinemas. It is expected to be released internationally over the coming months.
Christopher Khoo is a Singapore-based freelance musician, educator and journalist. – Today’s Catholic
