Experiencing Invisible City as a history student
by Ho Chi Tim
The sentiment I was left with after watching this thoughtful documentary-film, was that Tan Pin Pin tugged plenty on the emotional heart-strings: the Lady-Photographer who wished she was back in England after realising that Singapore was not very elder-friendly; the umpteenth time the Aging Anthropologist was let down by his memory in answering questions; the anger felt by the Chinese Man at the persistent demonisation of Chinese-educated students – but still fearful of being “invited for tea’ by the Internal Security Division; the Archaeologist’s lament at the lack of support for digs to recover physical remnants of the past… By the end, the practising historian in me felt ashamed and as one blogger commented, slightly defeated.
To be sure, Invisible City is not exactly what academic historians might deem totally kosher. Human memories are fallible and less reliable than black-and-white words, texts and documents; and the director’s motives are perhaps suspect as she walks the tight-rope between getting her message(s) across in a critical and commercially viable way.
However, this film still manages to accomplish things conventional approaches to history are perhaps unable to imagine beyond the boundaries of recorded documents. The highlight of the film was leaving the screen blank while allowing the narration of the anthropologist to continue, not clearly but just enough to imagine the scene from his barely audible words, leaving me wanting to know more. Pictures would have probably ruined that particular scene, and it emphasises, for me at least, a failing perhaps on the part of empirically-trained historians: we tend to rely too much on only what we can confirm, learning to distrust what we see, hear, touch or feel in the quest for objective truth.
But there is really no such thing as objective truth. While facts remain, histories are nonetheless made up of stories – i.e. strung together by vested interests, written and told from a variety of perspectives. More often than not, such histories would still be dominated in turn by a master history, which has access to not only more information, but to resources and methods of propagation allowing it to be more seen, more heard, or more taught.
Take for instance the conventional understanding of the Chinese-educated students and societal groups as violent radicals, labelled as communists to fit a story-line which needs heroes and villains. The Chinese Man’s plea for a just and fair portrayal of his fellow peers is particularly poignant, and a succinct reminder of the gaps and obstacles which remain in our understanding of Singapore’s history. Perhaps they were not all Communists. Most could be better classified as nationalistic anti-colonialists, fighting for rights which were inextricably linked to the independence of Singapore.
Another aspect of how the film bests conventional history is that it does not rely too much on context – or a “what’s the point†test. I remember attending a conference for ostensibly new approaches to Singapore history, where an archaeologist (the same featured in the film) pleaded for more support, only to be ignored by people recognised as professional historians because there is not much point in excavating presumably irrelevant objects – yes, you have excavated a soft-drink bottle. So what?
But wouldn’t we need to stumble and ponder upon discoveries before deciding relevance? Where is the je ne sais quio that defines history, the spontaneity that typifies the quest for exploration and the excitement of inspirational storytelling?
Perhaps there is no need to find strict connections, no need to justify the end result or the relevance. History – be it the act of researching or the accepted narrative itself – is better perceived as a process, as an experience, from which we may or may not learn things along the way. Pin Pin herself notes that the film is “less about Singapore and more about people who were propelled by curiosity to find their country for themselves, on their own terms.” Indeed, her original concept was to look at spaces in Singapore and how they change over time. The final product presented in Invisible City then is not so much “finalâ€, but more of a rest-stop in the process of experience and change – she did say she still have more footage in storage!
This is the biggest lesson I glean from Invisible City as a history student – the significance of the experience: the experiences of the director, the film’s protagonists, as well as the audience. To that end, the other inspiring bit is the absence of names for the protagonists throughout the duration of the film.* It allowed me to not put a label on them from the beginning – as I have done at the start of this article – but to sit back and listen unassumingly to their stories as fellow human beings who have experienced and are still experiencing things profound and genuine to them.
And perhaps the biggest conflict I will face, again as a history student, is that in doing history, I will have to try to understand past events, experiences and personalities on their terms and context, and simultaneously explain them in recognisable terms and labels to make them fit for general consumption, or whatever message I hope to put across.
The suffering Archaeologist commented that “if we didn’t leave a record of today without filming, does it mean that this event never happened?” To take the quote to one logical end, what is not recorded may not have a reason to exist simply because there is no knowledge of its existence. However, with each object he excavates, be it a Yeo Hiap Seng bottle or a cigarette packet, he proves that object’s existence and that should reason enough for a small story to be told at least.
This point was reinforced again at the end of the film, by the Chinese Man – who, citing Hegel, noted that if something exists, there must be a reason for its existence. But in a slight turnaround, and seemingly contradicting himself, he went on to say that if there is no reason for its existence, it will fade away. History falls out of mind after falling out of sight.
The usual starting-point for any historian is to provide knowledge about the past. We want to know more because of basic questions of “what happened, how did this happen, why did this happen, who was involved, where did it happen?†Unfortunately, I find that most historians today need a “bigger” reason to get started, i.e. what’s the Big Picture? That’s not wrong of course as inspiration is needed to begin a project.
But somehow along the way, because of that rationale, the process of history becomes too conformist: relying too much on “hard” data and preconceived beliefs, and being too fixated on the end-product. We start to play safe, to conform to societal demands – or what we presume society demands of historians. History (and its historians) become sterile and regurgitative.
Invisible City is a reminder of the larger roles historians – professional or otherwise – can play in society. Intentionally or not, the director and protagonists are showing the opportunities for historians to get involved, instead of getting bogged down in unproductive and reactive history; to actively research and write for interests’ sake (at least initially), instead of doing history for the sake of getting / maintaining a job. Particularly for Singapore history, the film has shown us untapped sources of information – e.g. the Anthropologist’s archives of film footages; and less-travelled angles of research – e.g. revisiting on fairer terms the constitutional struggle of 1950s and 1960s Singapore.
Just as Tan Pin Pin and her protagonists have done to some extent, historians should be able (and not be afraid) to shape thoughts and perceptions, to initiate debate and discussion, rather than always lurking in a cobwebbed archive or behind some dusty document. We just need to find that little bit more imagination and moral courage to walk the less–trodden path.
The author is a second-year Masters (Arts) candidate at the Department of History, in the National University of Singapore. This is less a review of Invisible City than an opinion on how aspects of the film can refresh (what-he-observes-as-stale) approaches to history. Some reviews can be found here.
* There is a list of names of the people appearing in Invisible City on the film’s website.
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