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SYNOPSIS - THE NEWSPAPER
Prologue – Protagonist’s Reality
HUI is brought up in Malaysia who favours photography since he was small. On his last day of work as a photo-journalist in “The World”, he hands in his last photo assignment. HUI will be migrating to a foreign land to start anew in life. His best friend, YONG, also a press photographer, albeit feeling heavy on HUI’s departure, truly understands the feeling of a photographer striving for his own dreams unbounded by rigidity of a workplace.
During this duration of HUI and YONG’s conversation and contemplation the office, there are many stories behind photographs scattered in HUI’s workplace; each of which are pieces of real lives, slowly unravel in due course…
1st Photo – KL City
A photo depicting the bustling KL city on the notice board brings out a story of a 19-year-old foreign labourer, HAN. HAN is a young immigrant from Bangladesh attracted by the trendy and face-pace lifestyle in KL city when he first stepped his foot here. His simplistic lifestyle brings out his country bumpkin’s simplistic dream to buy a dream shirt for himself – a branded one too. While working to make ends meet, he starts to accumulate his wages to achieve his dream. Just when he manages to get the sufficient amount of money, his family back home faces financial difficulties, hence forcing HAN to send the money back. HAN only accepts his reality as the sole bread-winner of his family and thus assumes his responsibilities to his family. His struggle in achieving vanity and obtaining new-found status as a city-dweller soon becomes more an idle fantasy than an attainable reality…
Protagonist’s Reality…
Even within the grey and monotonous reaches of KL city, HUI’s perception of this bleak reality is embellished by his vivacious and spirited ideals of a colourful, amalgamated society.
2nd Photo – Father and Son
Beyond the photo under HUI’s table, the second story is sprung out – A Malay father-and-son story. SHA is a father, who has been unemployed for a long period of time and BEE is his 7-year-old son. SHA’s life is analogous to the idiom, like fish out of the water – constantly unfamiliar and disjointed – and poorer than a church mouse,. BEE’s enthusiastic and spirited outlook grounds his father from all his pessimism. It is in this story that BEE, crazy over “Spiderman”, cajoles his father to bring him for a movie.
Coincidently, SHA discovers about a movie marathon promotion held in conjunction of a local cinema chain’s anniversary. Determined to satiate his son’s incessant plea. Unfortunately, even after queuing for a long time, SHA cannot get the tickets for the movie “Spiderman” which BEE wants. SHA have no choice but to accept tickets for an unpopular local show – “The Newspaper”. SHA grows distressed as he fears BEE may throw a tantrum on his disappointment upon discovery of truth. However, just when the movie trailer of “Spiderman” comes into screen, BEE cries happily with the movie in naivety without realizing the inherent difference between movies and trailers.
3rd Photo – Voluntary Envoy…
As HUI and YONG’s conversation ensues further, HUI is flooded by the memories of his demised parents. A timeworn photo brings out the third story, a story that familiarly links to HUI’s own circuitous journey in search of strength and inspiration – the story of FEN.
FEN is a person with proficient command of language, being a recent successful demand in the literary world. She is determined to join the one-year Myanmar Educational Aid Programme, organized by the institution where her uncle works in.
She is repeatedly rejected due to his uncle’s personal prejudices and hatred towards her immoral and vice-laden past. After a string of hang-ups and mismatched coincidences, the media gets the wrong leak that this voluntary programme draws a star-studded response including the famed young authoress, FEN. All of a sudden, the tables are turned, and Fen suddenly gets an approval letter.
Epilogue – Protagonist’s Reality…
HUI finishes packing after a whole day, and gets ready to leave the office in the evening. HUI seems to recall similar memories he have had with the three stories, HAN, BEE and FEN. These are all real life stories, not in his imagination.
Along his way, he passes by a night market. HUI saw HAN and his friends walking around.
Suddenly, a similar looking shirt which HAN has been eyeing for catches his attention. He sees his dream shirt at a road-side stall, and albeit the fact that the letters are skewed in this cloned model, the cheap price tag steals his attention.
SHA and BEE sits closely at a food stall, sharing a bowl of noodles. Something catches BEE’s attention and he suddenly shouted “X-Men!”
What about FEN? She is just like HUI, both waiting to leave familiarity aside for their pursuit of dreams…
The next morning, HUI carries his luggage into the taxi, on his way to the airport. HUI picks up a newspaper and as he flips through it, the pictures in it seems to become real as they depicts the characters in the story.
Sometimes, life is not the straight line we would like to perceive it as.
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