Salawati
Marc X Grigoroff


This shot-in-Singapore film starts out as a study in how people cope with grief.
After the death of 15-year-old Shahim, his father questions his faith while his sister, 12-year-old Salawati (a sombre-faced Siti Aisyah Masgot, below), withdraws into a world of her own.
She also begins trailing two men, Raj (Ravi Kumar) and Chan (Chaar Chun Kong), who were somehow involved in her brother’s drowning.
The fact that Wati is Malay, Raj is Indian and Chan is Chinese suggests some kind of comment on race relations.
Salawati owes more than a passing debt to the Oscar-winning Crash (2004), which used intersecting stories to touch on the prickly issue of race in Los Angeles. But like Crash, the set-up here is too deliberate and over-engineered to seem provocative.
Whatever American and Singapore permanent resident writer/director Marc X Grigoroff might have to say about this sensitive topic is undercut by the thinly drawn characters which themselves play into racial stereotypes.
(ST)