Sarcophagus of Youth: Sandi Tan’s Shirkers
by Mariya Lim
When the word “slackers” already exists, the similar-sounding synonym “shirkers” seems unnecessary. To stream a film entitled Shirkers (Sandi Tan, 2018) on the media platform that enables duty-dodging, bedridden binge fests—it’s poetic perfection.
Singapore, 1992: a ragtag girl gang of precocious punks made the first incarnation of Shirkers. For Sandi Tan, Jasmine Ng, and Sophia Siddique-Harvey, this was their first foray into filmmaking. Facilitating their baptism by fire was a much older American transplant named Georges Cardona, Shirkers’ initial director.
Over that productive summer, they scouted locations, secured sponsorships, and wrung out performances from strangers and friends—no mean feat for a skeleton crew where ¾ of the core shirkers were newbies. This madcap road movie about a murderer-cum-messiah was supposed to be one of Singapore’s first indie features, if only it had been actually finished and released. Once the shoot was over, things did not go as planned. Georges had the film. The girl gang did not. It was never finished, and for twenty years it would stay this way until one fateful day the film apparently re-appeared; cans of celluloid kept perfectly intact, missing only the sound.
This Shirkers (2018) is a version of events from Sandi Tan’s perspective. Here we follow her trip through time and across countries as she unravels the stranger-than-fiction circumstances of this lost and found film. At our disposal on Netflix is a changeling, where the recovered, restored footage is intercut with recent interviews, shot in the familiar film-within-a-film format.
In writing about Shirkers, I have to confront my reluctance—or shall I say prejudice— towards navel-gazing. With its privileged teen leads, Shirkers is a Singaporean film that shies away from tackling the serious, expected themes stemming from a migrant-rich, melting-pot society. Visually, the girlish scrawls in the editing hark back to a shared style of pre-Internet collages: zines for Tan, scrapbooks for me. There’s vulnerability in the voiceover, the way it quivers as we piece the parts of this curious mystery together. Old friends passively-aggressively unload their baggage on camera and we are the awkward witnesses. An autobiographical, participatory documentary, Shirkers delivers a double whammy of self-involvement that should have repelled me and my dismissive attitude when it comes to art that is over-editorialized.
Tastes are malleable, though, opinions in flux. Under the charm of aspirational, relatable “that-could-be-you-isms,” I give in. From publishing novels and movie reviews to a growing, already impressive film oeuvre, Sandi Tan is living the author/auteur dream. So it can be done: You can talk about and take apart films, then successfully cross over into making them. Done well, deeply personal work can still resonate and transcend, the best examples being a union between self-expression and social commentary.
This re-education on the okay-ness of being two, three, or more things all at once takes me to another topic: Identity in this information age. Meme humor bonds me with the identity of a middle-class Westerner while common ground is tougher to attain with an indigenous kid from the backwoods and boondocks of my own country. Blood is thicker than water, they say, but your lived experiences are determined more by class than ethnicity.
Even so, seeming white doesn’t make any of “us” truly one of “them.” When the monolithic molds cast by both ancestor and colonial master are equally othering, you never feel enough on either side. Nuanced portrayals of this mixed-bag generation normalize our new culture. The message is clear: It’s okay to code switch from native to foreign and back. We are not lost or confused.
So I further inspect Shirkers’ quirky scenes and set pieces for signs that I’ve seen this or that somewhere else. Attach it to a low-budget music video for a college band in the Philippines, and nothing would look out of place. Somehow this version of déjà vu does not disturb me. I am instead comforted by the organic development of this aesthetic. It would seem we grew up emulating the same idols. Adolescence really does wear a uniform, unique—just like everyone else.
So it’s possible for two creators to independently come up with the same thing. What then when only one of them receives the credit? Is one justified in feeling robbed even though the plagiarism is purely coincidental? The original Shirkers was ahead of its time in depicting Americana in the tropics. Its imagery even predated a few Hollywood teen cult classics like Rushmore (1998) and Ghost World (2001). It reminds me of the under-discussed, possibly overblown rivalry between contemporary Chinese photographers Lin Zhipeng (aka 223) and the late Ren Hang. Both are known for their harshly lit portraiture of the young and racy, but there is a disparity in the reception of their work. While Hang’s works were pinned on the mood boards of my art school peers, the older Zhipeng was not nearly as well known. Whether this is an injustice is up for debate, but to identify the progenitor and protégé—if it even applies here—can be a complicated process. Reduced to a popularity contest, though, the winners are clear. Never mind nuance—where there’s uncanny similarity, there always has to be a copycat.
Now, being indistinguishable from one’s influences should concern the budding artist, but this is far from the only occupational hazard. In Shirkers and beyond, there are vampires who ruin creative pursuits for everybody. Sometimes it’s a #MeToo moment, or there lurks another kind of shady figure, one whose power trips don’t involve sex. Theirs is a gift for storytelling that hardly ever translates to legitimate output. Posing as mentors and preying on ambitions, they reel you in with their charisma. Next thing you know, you’re working on their passion projects for free. Unfortunately, run-ins with quacks and hacks wear out even the wide-eyed. Pubescent pluck is a finite resource. Those who are betrayed by adults are pushed to become cynics too soon. At worst, they repeat the vicious cycle, mutating into abusers themselves.
As a detective story, Shirkers tries yet fails to solve the riddle that was Georges Cardona: Sandi’s vampire. Was he mentally ill? Did he enjoy endangering the life of a child actor? Is the original film’s sound still out there? Is damning his legacy in a film and this essay akin to glorifying him? What would he say to redeem himself? We’ll never know. To hear an excuse or explanation straight from the horse’s mouth is impossible now, as Cardona passed away before he could be put on trial, let alone be punished.
As a time capsule, Shirkers is effective in its emotional infectiousness. Before-and-after sequences illustrate a Singapore where David didn’t kill Goliath—he became the giant. The second-hand pain hits hard whether you return home a stranger or stick around long enough to helplessly trace the transformations in real time. These evictions and exoduses tap into a primal, universal fear of losing the roof over your head, memories included.
As a precautionary tale, watching Shirkers should inspire some common sense advice: Back up your files. Keep records. Talk to your parents. Trust your gut. Imitate sparingly. Don’t withdraw all your savings. Try not to wing it on set if planning ahead is an option. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your co-workers closest. Sandi Tan & Co. found out too late, but in exchange for their missteps, we have this masterpiece.
Above all, Shirkers is a love letter to the agony and ecstasy of the craft. Cinema is the art form of contradictions—collaborative yet cliquish, fairly accessible to the masses yet expensive to mount, a tech-fueled industry where “story is king” and if you want to tell your truth you have to be really good at lying.
It’s a world filled with movers and shakers, so let’s welcome the shirkers. We could learn a thing or two.
Mariya Lim is a screenwriter and filmmaker based in Cebu, Philippines. She is a graduate of the University of San Carlos BFA Cinema program. Her movie reviews and critical essays have been published in the Plaridel Journal, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival Film Criticism Collective 2, Sinekultura Film Journal and others. She is also involved in writing and programming for the Binisaya Film Festival.