Ada Apa dengan Movie Malaysia?

Last weekend I spend my Sunday prancing around Pavilion, wasting my time like a boss. Plan is to watch Dark Knight Rises 2, but no good seat available (I thought there's only me who still didn't watch it regardless of being released almost a month already) but I was wrong. And so I bought a ticket to watch a Malay movie instead, titled 'SAM'.

Alert: This is not a movie review post.

SAM is about a couple; rather typical sweet-romantic-head-over-heels couple, who wish to marry each other, but their dream was crushed in a single night when each character starts to change, in an eerie way.

While watching this movie, I can't stop thinking about what has happened to the quality of local film, its direction, purpose, long term objective and vision of the producer.

Theme of the film is love & psychotic-action. While it might sounds very cliche for those who had watched English movie for the rest of their lives, such theme is deem unusual and successfully gave unexpected twist-of-event for most of Malay audience.

While try not to focus on this movie alone, I would like to derive the following points:

1. I should applaud local actors & actresses for their increasing quality in acting. Few names in this business are recognized for their excellent heart-felt portrayal, and do 'did' a good job in delivering the roles intended. Sam Shaheizy, Raja Farah, Adi Putra, Zulhelmy, Que Haidar, Umi Nazeera, Adflin Shauki - those are few names worth praised and some others not mentioned here. This new generation does give us hope for the next few years more.

2. I also feel that the producer did a good effort by trying to break the typical chain of local movie theme which usually evolves around love, drama, corporate world conflict, paranormal activities, slapstick comedy (or some brilliant comedy), et cetera. Such theme as 'psycho-action' or 'split-identity' are not a popular option in the market, as few years back it is not very much welcomed by most of local audience. I remembered the last film attempting to use such theme was one from Aziz M Osman titled 'Trauma', and the response was only luke-warm. Hence this return of psycho-theme does bring a fresh wave and open a new genre of film in the local scene. It might set a trend too.

3.  Originality

I can't refrain myself from feeling disappointed, however. When the attempt deserved a praise, the production is a wee-bit pathetic that I feel like being tortured for the rest of the 1 hour & a half.

While the idea can be adopted from Western movie, at least (I think) we could inject some our own local ideas in the storyline. But the storyline is cliche, predictable (at least for me) as it follows exactly as previously published American movie, and portrayed no originality at all.

Hence my question is, until when our local Malaysian industry will be like this? Taking idea from Western movie and produced a local movie with the same storyline without originality in it? How can we achieve a step further rather than just a mere copy-cat? How much longer should we stay at this level only?

4. Pop Culture

It is worrying how widely accepted the Western-pop culture is by Malaysian citizen. This is not about this particular film alone, but almost all of the films or I should say, the reality of modern society in Malaysia.

It is alarming how Malay culture (in particular) has changed over the past few years. It is even more alarming when we bring religion into this subject. Sitting in the hall, I was surrounded by 'couples' watching movie in pairs, and sighing how cute & romantic the couple in the movie was, all very loving and sweet to each other.

Talking about the subject of love, I have no intention to deny the purity of love between two people, and so I will not questioned truthfulness of such love whatsoever.

However, digging this matter even deeper, it is indeed alarming how Muslims community in Malaysia has no longer view such affection-display, holding hands, hugging between unmarried couple as something prohibited by religion, but it is accepted and even celebrated as 'very sweet, very romantic, an evidence of true love and there's nothing wrong with it.'

Hence the question is, how deep has such acceptance penetrated into our culture & society? How does it impacted our community's religious belief & practices among us?

Even more serious question, what is the level of Islamic understanding, belief, value & practices among Muslims in Malaysia?

While I am not trying to play 'ustazah' or religion-freak here, Muslims just couldn't simply turn a blind eye towards the current trend in the society.

Just how serious is the lack of principle, understanding & practices of Islamic value in Malaysian-Muslims community, that such behaviour displayed by unmarried man & woman is accepted as common, and even worse, accepted as a norm in our culture?

What is it the objective aspired by the producer besides commercial prospect?  Is it personal satisfaction? Artistic experiment? What is it the main goal the producer would like to impart on the society? What value would he want to blend within society? Does our local producer has any aspiration to educate the audience, or the only justification is just to break box-office record and no social responsibility at all?

5. Identity

I have attended a talk before, and the very question posted by the speaker struck me: What is it that Malaysian can offer - in films, arts, architecture, etc, that shows the very unique identity of Malaysia?

It made me realized that up till now, Malaysia really, still, did not have anything exclusively Malaysian, to offer to the world.

Puteri Gunung Ledang & Merong Mahawangsa might attempted to do so, however both did not accurately represent history of Malaysia or Malaysian as a whole.

Nasi Lemak 2.0 by Namawee bring the spirit of Malaysia on screen through sarcastic-comedy approach, however still did not bring out the pride of Malaysia besides showing the current multi-racial & political issues in Malaysia.

In conclusion, there is not a single production that truly represent the unique identity of Malaysian citizen, nor portrayed the true face of the country, its vision, aspirations or artistic value.

Really, what do we have in store actually?  

This is indeed perplexing.

However, we can always be better. I believe in that always.

On how betterment could be employed, high hopes are put in current & future generation art groups.

Like it or not, social responsibility must be embedded into every individual in Malaysia, in order to have a collective result.

To be continued.