As Dr. To speaks with a growing warmth and humour about events in his own life we are not witness to illustrations of these events but to moments of his wife caught in passing, looking over her shoulder to greet the camera's stare in Athens, Hawaii and Hong Kong. All that will never return. Her look is finally met by the filmmaker's five year old stare, similarly drawn into the camera. This closed circle of matched gazes completes an identificatory figure that finally impels the filmmaker to take the place of her grandmother, now seen walking alongside her grandfather on the beach, sitting beside the old man on a couch, waving together from her new car. And now it seems like I do all the talking.
Pioneers is framed with an oral signature drawn from the family archive.
While the filmmaker is just six months old, her mother and father coax her to sing, and then ask what song she would like to hear them sing. Her response is simply, Sing a song . Similarly, the first question posed to Dr. To by the filmmaker is simply, Just say anything . The details of narration are less important here than the fact of their speaking. This repeating family figure is bent on preserving a moment of address and arresting the flux which leads inexorably towards mortality and loss.