Another season over, another 12 episodes of drama come to an end. The fourth season of the groundbreaking lesbian drama series based in Los Angeles, USA has more ups and downs than all the rides in a Disney Theme Park put together, more drama than Bold and the Beautiful, and less sex than Friends?

To talk about the beginning, we must talk about the end. Season 3 managed to do an extremely good job of alienating everyone from stone butches to bisexuals to goldstar dykes to Dana-fans. And if that was not enough, the continued and annoying presence of a certain Band That Shall Not Be Named [here's a hint, their name starts with B, and ends with y. Shh! Don't say it out loud!] and the refusal to remove the world's most annoying theme song, turned dykes against the show by the score.

Season 4, then had a lot of slack to pick up. It had to bring back the humour, the drama, the fun that Season 3 somehow lost along the way.

The wait for the first episode was fraught with suspense over all the cliff-hangers in the last episode. The biggest cliff-hanger, to me, was not knowing whether Bette was going to be in prison: I just wanted to know whether the theme song was going to be changed. And in a few short minutes after playing the episode, everyone around me should have gotten the answer as I let out a desperate wail and started pounding my head against the computer keyboard.

My patience at not turning off the show at this point was rewarded, as I was treated to a sumptuous good episode of The L Word, back with full gusto and drama that put my faith back in Ilene. It set a very good tone for the rest of the season as it set up everyone's plotlines.

The rest of the season, similarly, met my expectations, with occasional letdowns. The writing, as usual, was off sometimes, and on occasions, extremely painful. I thought I was sitting through an episode of Whizzes of the Void Deck as Shane and Paige stumbled through 'educating' a class of 9-year olds on homosexuality. This scene was an example of a storyline in the show with so much potential, but went down the drain due to bad writing. And then sometimes, the writing was simply amazing, as with Episode 6, where all the women were shown on the phone-tree, doing what lesbians do best: creating drama.

This season also introduced four new characters, which greatly increased the diversity of the show. The introduction of the African-American lesbian, Tasha, pleased me the most, as the lack of non-white queer women on the show was an issue bugging me from the beginning. To add to that, her position in the military, as well as her role in the Iraq War, provided us with the interestingly conflicted perspective of the LGBT person in the army. Jodi, the deaf lesbian was a welcome addition, as the issue of physically challenged LGBT people is hardly ever broached in our community. Phyllis Kroll, the chancellor, is the story we all know and hope to never live: the woman who comes out very late, after living a completely heterosexual life.

Another season over, another 12 episodes of drama come to an end. The fourth season of the groundbreaking lesbian drama series based in Los Angeles, USA has more ups and downs than all the rides in a Disney Theme Park put together, more drama than Bold and the Beautiful, and less sex than Friends?

To talk about the beginning, we must talk about the end. Season 3 managed to do an extremely good job of alienating everyone from stone butches to bisexuals to goldstar dykes to Dana-fans. And if that was not enough, the continued and annoying presence of a certain Band That Shall Not Be Named [here's a hint, their name starts with B, and ends with y. Shh! Don't say it out loud!] and the refusal to remove the world's most annoying theme song, turned dykes against the show by the score.

Season 4, then had a lot of slack to pick up. It had to bring back the humour, the drama, the fun that Season 3 somehow lost along the way.

The wait for the first episode was fraught with suspense over all the cliff-hangers in the last episode. The biggest cliff-hanger, to me, was not knowing whether Bette was going to be in prison: I just wanted to know whether the theme song was going to be changed. And in a few short minutes after playing the episode, everyone around me should have gotten the answer as I let out a desperate wail and started pounding my head against the computer keyboard.

My patience at not turning off the show at this point was rewarded, as I was treated to a sumptuous good episode of The L Word, back with full gusto and drama that put my faith back in Ilene. It set a very good tone for the rest of the season as it set up everyone's plotlines.

The rest of the season, similarly, met my expectations, with occasional letdowns. The writing, as usual, was off sometimes, and on occasions, extremely painful. I thought I was sitting through an episode of Whizzes of the Void Deck as Shane and Paige stumbled through 'educating' a class of 9-year olds on homosexuality. This scene was an example of a storyline in the show with so much potential, but went down the drain due to bad writing. And then sometimes, the writing was simply amazing, as with Episode 6, where all the women were shown on the phone-tree, doing what lesbians do best: creating drama.

This season also introduced four new characters, which greatly increased the diversity of the show. The introduction of the African-American lesbian, Tasha, pleased me the most, as the lack of non-white queer women on the show was an issue bugging me from the beginning. To add to that, her position in the military, as well as her role in the Iraq War, provided us with the interestingly conflicted perspective of the LGBT person in the army. Jodi, the deaf lesbian was a welcome addition, as the issue of physically challenged LGBT people is hardly ever broached in our community. Phyllis Kroll, the chancellor, is the story we all know and hope to never live: the woman who comes out very late, after living a completely heterosexual life.

 

Warning: Movie spoilers ahead

Last night, I went to watch Water¹ with my family. Water, for those who do not know it, is the latest edition of Deepa Mehta’s elemental trilogy, which opened with a bang 9-10 years ago, in the form of the explosive film known as Fire.

Ah yes, Fire. Rings a bell, does it not? The controversial lesbian film which caused a fair bit of damage to theatres in India when it first opened. The story is about two sisters-in-law in a typical Indian household who fall in love, and the consequent problems. It was consequently banned in India [and might I add, Singapore too], while it went on to garner awards in international film festivals.

After Fire made its own, pardon the pun, firestorm in India, it was 9 years before someone broached the topic again, the hideous creation known as Girlfriend not withstanding. This time, it touched me a lot closer to the heart: a wonderful woman known as Ligi Pulapally made a lesbian film in my language[Malayalam]: The Journey, or Sancharam, released in 2005. The story is about two rural girls who grow up together as best friends, and wouldn’t you know it, fall in love.

So why in the world am I talking about these two films most of you probably have not watched?

Ok ok, the time is here again! Yes, it’s the 19th Singapore International Film Festival! So, is anyone out there who is excited? (Waiting and tapping finger on the table)…

All right I know the SIFF isn’t something which is terrbily exciting to everyone, but here is a little insider’s story that might help you appreciate this yearly local film event a little better…

Just not too long ago, like maybe last year? A friend told me that the SIFF might not happen this year because their main sponsor Asia Pacific Brewery, had been warned by the government not to fund the event. The reason? I think a documentary on Chee Soon Juan was made and the SIFF tried to screen it in the local short films competition non-finalist screening. That made’YOU KNOW WHO very, very much unhappy. Moreover there was the Royston Tan’s fiasco a few years back when he made ‘Cut’ to poke fun at the film censorship here. Yes,’’Cut’ was screened in the festival.

Then rumours surfaced that the men dressed in white wanted to stop the event! Horrors! What will happen to the future of Singapore film-makers?! Wait, I need to take a deep breath to calm down…

Fine, fine…’dramatics aside, the government isn’t that bad afterall, they are pumping money to fund local talents here to encourage film-making via the Singapore Film Commission funding programme. We are a developed country so how can we do without the arts right?

Anyway, came DHL to the rescue. Phew! Fortunately for them , the SIFF is still running. So let’s get to the main point here: FILMS.

The film festival has been a yearly pilgrimage for me since it’s tenth run in 1997. I saw numerous films and was a huge fan of Hou Hsao Hsien, Tsai Ming Liang and Edward Yang. Yes, but that only lasted two years, because I could no longer keep up with their soporific films with incomprehensible meanings. Except for Edward Yang whom I still admire, years of SIFF experience has thought me to pick films carefully. To date, I think out of ten films I saw, probably only two were worth the time.