Australian
Screen

Clip description

This clip begins with a montage of street scenes in Singapore accompanied by an instrumental soundtrack. Filmmaker Alan Bresnahan narrates his experience of Singapore and observes the bamboo scaffolding that adorns construction sites in the city. This is followed by his reflections on Singapore’s British legacy and history of occupation as seen through the prism of the colonial-era Raffles Hotel. The final section of the clip follows his tour group’s day trip to the southern Malaysian state of Johor, where they visit a former Sultan’s palace and mosque.

Curator’s notes

Bresnahan’s observations of the former British Straits Settlement of Singapore in this clip provide an insight into some Western perspectives on South-East Asia in the 1970s. For instance, he refers to the use of bamboo scaffolding as striking an 'odd note’ and being incongruent with a modern city. The processing of difference as inferiority is of interest here. While Bresnahan does not intentionally patronise the Asian tradition of using bamboo for scaffolding, his comment highlights differences in understanding of progress and modernity.

Similarly, his association of the Raffles Hotel with the colonial literature of Rudyard Kipling and Somerset Maugham touches on the 19th century imperialist tendency to romanticise the British colonies in Asia. The Japanese occupation of Singapore (an experience within living memory for Singaporeans) is referred to only obliquely and again in reference to the Raffles Hotel. A single sentence in which he mentions that the Japanese appropriated the building for their own purposes during the Second World War is all that hints at this cultural trauma.

These examples do not lessen Bresnahan’s experience of Singapore, but rather serve to highlight the complexity of the cultural perspective that informs his narrative.