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I have to admit that my impression of Marcus Lim before I interviewed him and after was some worlds apart.
I was in attendance at a private film screening — already feeling awkward and out of place among the other learned and cultured guests — when I was summoned to meet a local patron of the arts, who also happens to be married to a very senior politician.
“This is Marcus Lim,” she said, introducing me to the man seated beside her.
“He’s a film director whose movie — what was it you were saying about the movie again Marcus?”
“It was in the Top 10 for Netflix in Europe this last week,” he replied in a jovial baritone.
A Singaporean filmmaker with a successful European career? He must be a big deal, I thought to myself.
Scrambling to find my best impression of a professional journalist, we exchanged contacts and agreed to meet up for a chat some other time.
Yet, when I finally sit down for a coffee with him some weeks later, my perception of Lim as an established film director blazing a trail through Europe was somewhat muddied.
To tell the truth, it is possible that Lim up until relatively recently may be better known for the other hats that he has worn.
In his career thus far, the 40-year-old has introduced himself as a journalist, a press relations manager, a communications consultant, and a lecturer.
But in all that time, none were hats that he really felt passionate about wearing.
It wasn’t till Lim, at 33, found himself inundated with a dreadful sense of mundanity that he felt moved to do something about it.
“The catalyst was right about 2017-ish. I felt in such a rut, and it's like the rut had taken hold so much that the only way was to break out of it. You can’t be in that rut anymore,” Lim told me.
“I called my friend in Germany and I said, ‘Look, I really need to do something. If I don’t make something I’m going to go crazy.”
As it turns out, that thing Lim was going to make was a movie.
"Entertaining people on a big scale"
Lim’s fascination with filmmaking started as a teenager after he’d put together a short movie while still a student at Serangoon Junior College.
“It was the most teenage-angsty short film ever known to man,” he recalled, chuckling; the plot revolved around a school girl who was getting ready to hand in an essay critiquing the education system.
A still from Lim's first short film. Image from Marcus Lim
However, in Lim’s retelling, the project — which was funded through his pocket money savings — was spurred less by a passion for movies than it was for motivations that were a little more base.
“I was filming an actress that I had a massive crush on and I was hoping that I could spend some time with her.
In my teenage mind I was thinking: ‘wait she’s an actress, maybe I should do something that she’ll be interested in. Then we can collaborate and maybe it’ll lead to something’.”
Many of us guys might be familiar with this sort of romantic pursuit, and its inevitable offspring — romantic failure.
But the exercise did succeed in lighting a spark.
Soon, Lim was making short movies that would be screened at school, facilitated by an extremely supportive school administration.
“They’d show the films at assemblies and people would laugh and, you know, it makes you feel good. It’s a massive rush when you’re entertaining people on a big scale.”
Having determined that moviemaking was a “solid gig” — a notion further reinforced during National Service where he was tasked with video production for his unit — Lim went off to university to study film theory in the United Kingdom.
Adjacent to his ambitions
While a degree in film theory differs from a course in film production, Lim figured that he could pick up the technical skills on the job.
As it was, the degree set him up nicely for a job as a journalist for Variety, an entertainment industry magazine, upon graduation.
He moved to Hong Kong where he was the publication’s regional correspondent, in what Lim described as the “halcyon days” of the special administrative region’s film scene, bolstered by significant investment from the mainland.
It wasn’t exactly what Lim wanted to be doing, but he figured that it was a foot in the door en route to making his own movies.
“I thought it was adjacent, a way to understand more about the film industry,” Lim said.
Eventually, the contacts and relationships he made through covering the industry, Lim hoped, could be parlayed into an opportunity to fulfil his ambitions.
The only problem is that such an approach isn’t in the least bit novel nor unique; the entertainment business is teeming with individuals who lurk on the fringes waiting for a chance at a big break.
“You can be a stunt man and say ‘I’ve got a script’. You can be a colour editor and say ‘I’ve got a script’,” explained Lim, a description that conjured up the image of leering muscle-bound men and skinny sleep-deprived hipsters standing on Hollywood’s corners peddling bound typewritten screenplays as if they were some illicit artefact.
“Everyone’s got a script and everyone wants to direct.”
"What the hell was wrong with me"
A few more filmmaking-adjacent jobs followed, including a stint doing public relations for the Hong Kong International Film Festival, a role facilitating co-productions for a Chinese film company, and a lecturing post at the Singapore University of Social Sciences.
All throughout this period — categorised by Lim as his “wilderness years” — the goal remained to become a movie director.
“It always felt like I should be doing it. It was like ‘Come on, what are you doing? You should be entertaining people!’” said Lim.
Lim (centre) in red and yellow. Image from Marcus Lim.
But at the same time, pragmatic concerns naturally edged out romantic yearnings.
“There was no time to think about your own films, there was no time to be inspired to write as well.
You’re just so overwhelmed with trying to make a living every day that you just didn’t think about these things.”
Caught between the churn of daily life and increasingly inescapable ennui, Lim soon slipped into full-on burnout.
“I spent a lot of time wandering around in the daytime,” Lim said, “trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me.”
It was in the midst of this rut, that Lim spoke to a friend in Germany, Thomas Hillenbrand. The pair had studied together in the UK, with Hillenbrand going on to work as a film producer.
“I used to go to his place, an hour out of Dortmund in a rural part of Germany. And I said, ‘Man, I’m in such a rut’. And he said, ‘Come over and we’ll drink as we always do.’
I told him ‘Nah, I can’t. We need to do something. Can you tell me what resources you have and I’ll tell you what resources I have. We’ll pool them together and I’ll write a script.’”
"The fastest thing I'd ever done"
By 2017, Lim was five years deep into an obsession with spy movies — seeded by a viewing of the 2011 film “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”. When it came time to make his own film, he knew exactly what he wanted to do.
Wanting to bring authenticity to his film, Lim went down a rabbit hole of research into Cold War-era espionage.
“I watched every film, I read every book I could about the Cold War. I read newspapers about it before I even started writing,” he said.
Within six months of that phone call with Hillenbrand, Lim found himself on set at an abandoned hotel in Fuelbecketalsperre, Germany, with actors and a crew made up of professionals and students.
“It was the fastest thing I’d ever done,” Lim said of the journey from conception to action; the screenplay, for example, was written in two weeks.
Behind the scenes on "The Man from the Other Side". Image from Marcus Lim
Behind the scenes on "The Man from the Other Side". Image from Marcus Lim
The result of all that work is “The Man on the Other Side” an 85-minute long spy thriller set in 70s Germany (still divided by the Berlin Wall) and revolving around the real-life phenomenon of sexpionage and so-called Romeo agents.
“It's basically someone who seduces someone to get information,” said Lim, explaining the historical inspiration behind his film.
“These were men were trained to seduce women, and why these women in particular? These were women working as secretaries… they would’ve had access to all the secret documents — the blood cells of the West German bureaucracy.”
The film itself is a throwback to the classic spy movies of yesteryear. In lieu of high-tech gadgets and fancy cars, “The Man on the Other Side” deals in suspense, machinations, and a slow-burning sense of unease.
Characters second-guess each other’s motives and backstories, as did I while watching the film.
Respecting the money
Of course, at this juncture, the Singaporean thing to wonder is if the film was successful. Anyone can slap together some moving pictures, but to do it well and make money is another matter altogether.
Critically, “The Man on the Other Side” appears to have been well received — the film has gathered accolades, including a nomination for Best Narrative Feature at the Inca Imperial International Film Festival and the award of Best Feature at the Montevideo World Film Festival.
Lim eventually struck a deal for the film to be streamed in Europe by Netflix, where it managed to clinch the distinction of being ranked as a Top 10 Movie upon its release.
A note of personal satisfaction to Lim is that the movie has been pirated and painstakingly dubbed into Russian.
“It had an audience. They didn’t pay, but there was an audience [for the film],” he added.
But in pragmatic Singapore, what we want to know is if Lim had made any money out of his passion-driven venture. Lim too appears to have adopted this prudent attitude.
“The one thing all of us need to learn as filmmakers is we must always respect the money,” he said.
“A lot of filmmakers don't respect the money and that's very bad. Because if you don't respect the money, the money disappears for the next [director] that comes along.”
Nonetheless, when I pose the question, Lim admits that “The Man on the Other Side” is still in the red.
He’d personally ploughed a “low six-figure” sum into the project himself, not to mention other partners whose investments made the film possible.
“We haven't made all of our money back. But I think through its lifetime, we'll be able to break even.”
Opening doors
Despite this, Lim was buoyed by the reception that his movie has received, while accepting my suggestion that his is not yet a classic "success" story.
"The story hasn't finished yet. There's still more to come," he said defiantly.
He is after all just one movie into a career transition of sorts.
"These things open doors," said Lim, referring to his debut feature.
"They tell people, 'This is what I can do'. And then people stop thinking of you as other things.
They stop thinking of you as an academic, as a journalist, as a hanger-on. They'll start saying, 'well this guy actually made a film. He's a director.'"
Among the multitude of projects Lim is now pursuing, is his next film, which will once again be set in the Cold War Era.
"It's a Soviet Western, which is weird. But I think it's going to be quite fun."
He also developing a TV Show set in Singapore that he wasn't at liberty to talk about except to promise that it was a real story that "will blow your mind".
It's only the start of a burgeoning career that all started with a decision to "just do something".
Lim and his colleagues at the Berlin premiere of "The Man from the Other Side". Image from Marcus Lim
There will be a screening of "The Man On The Other Side" on Saturday, Apr. 15, 5.30pm at The Arts House.
Tickets can be purchased from www.themanontheotherside.com.
Top image from Marcus Lim