All Magic, No Trickery

A Singaporean candidate for a festival prize

24.05.08 / Like any good magician, Bosco Francis can’t resist a chance to surprise an audience. So last night when the audience in Cannes rose to its feet to applaud his performance in My Magic, he suddenly opened his hand and released a fireball into the Lumière cinema. You immediately understand why Singaporean director Eric Khoo wanted to work with Francis, who is 48 years old, has never before appeared on a screen and whose performance in My Magic is nothing short of astonishing. Francis (who did all his own tricks in the film, without any help from special effects) plays a down-and-out illusionist who spits fire, chews broken glass and drinks superhuman amounts of liquor. For all the pain he’s able to endure he can’t stop hurting over the loss of his wife, nor can he manage the simple task of looking after his teenage son (Jathishweran Naidu). My Magic may appear exotic to some viewers. The dialogue is in Tamil with smatterings of Hokkien and English, and you’d have to know Singapore to grasp the full, mouth-watering significance of curry chicken. But the film’s take on Singapore’s national obsession (making money) should strike a universal chord, as will this story of abiding and ultimately redemptive love between father and son.My Magic is less about magic than about putting one foot in front of the other and getting on with the business of life, and it has a good shot at being the first Singaporean film to win a prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It deserves nothing less. — R.K.