The misfortune for Eric Khoo’s Be With Me is that it’s being released in Britain so soon after Hoāu Hsiao-Hsien&ārsquo;s superior Three Times, another minimalist Asian triptych about romantic yearning.
The film is set in contemporary Sšingapore, with characters in a familiar predicament: despite having numerous opportunities for communication (phone, text, e-mail), they still struggle to articulate their true feelings. A shy security guard is enamoured with a businesswoman at work; an affair between two tešenage girls ends acrimoniously; and a lonely widower grieves for his wife.
Khoo’s less-is-more approach favours šstatic compositions and subdued colour. The lack of diaš¼logue reinforces the theme, but Khoo fails to integrate the documentary-style scenes with the film’s inspiration, real-life deafblind author Theresa Chan.
