Flower in the Pocket

Director Liew Seng Sat has made an engaging and tender film about two young boys who grow up without a mother and with little attention from their father. Flower in the Pocket is a consistently visually assured film reminiscent of Royston Tan’s 4:30 – but not entirely as dark. The brothers, Li Ahh and Li Ohm, are in separate classes at school. With an absent mother and a father consumed by his work, the boys are mostly left to themselves. They have a tendency to play truant and when they in fact attend school they often get into trouble. Clearly suffering from a lack of parental care, the boys have had to take care of themselves at a too young age. Their lonely life is in stark contrast with that of their new friend, Atan. Her happy circumstances include both a mother and a grandmother. Flower in the Pocket’s primary quality is the depiction of a grief process in a sober and quiet manner. The children’s ability to find pleasures in their everyday life, however, is not overshadowed by the bad spells but these two moods are portrayed in parallel, in a film that is exceedingly beautiful, tender and engrossing. When the boys find a stray dog, a little puppy, and take it home, we realise that both the boys and the father can learn to care. Flower in the Pocket is not a film that over-explains matters but lets the audience be in on the discovery of what is about to happen to a small, dysfunctional family. jo