Oh yeah! Other than glorious food, Malaysia is glorious with ghost, spirits and trolls. They come to a cinema near you baby!
Before I left my high school, I decided to leave a memento in a shape of a Malay satire entitled ‘Bikin Celluloid’ . It’s a novel effort of telling a story through the eyes of Mr.Producer and his teams working on a film entitled ‘Cinta Semerah Marikh’. The crisis in the story lies in Mr.Producer who funded this movie expecting to see it all happens the way he ever wanted. He envisions a film that none has ever created and would left a ‘ding’ in the industry. Yet, the unsupportive Mr.Director has a different approach in mind to moviemaking. He’s not only getting the film to silverscreen, but does whatever it takes to create a film can make biggest profit. Mr.Producer noticed that his vision is hindered by a shortsighted Mr.Director who decided to use clichés of the market. In the end, Mr.Director singlehandedly altered many things and left Mr.Producer questioning himself when will the Malaysian Cinema would get sick of the same clichés and grasp the hunger for a change. Bikin Celluloid can
be read in the 2005 edition of ALIRAN annual school magazine.
Its been long years since it was released for public reading. Humbly, I admit being a bit shame to read my own sophomore literary works until this moment leaving Bikin Celloid somehow ‘orphaned’. The satire represent is a little voice inside the many of us to see change in the cliché of the post millennium Malaysian cinema landscape. From 2000 until 2005, in that span of years, movies were primarily about boys meet girl and soon fell lovesick people singing the blues of the heartbroken. Along the timespan did the government decided to open the floodgates for idiotic and intellectually cheap horror ghost stories. For sure it had appeal to the masses, because that’s the only choice of genre they’ve gotten. In short, Malaysian moviegoers were force fed with tahyuls. Plenty of jins, samprits and toyol were haunting the silverscreens raking millions, bringing production house, actors and studios back to life from the deadly plague of 1997 economic crisis which may have brought them down bitting the dust.
Producers, just as businessmen, would want to fund movie titles which market ‘demands’. Of course, any sane minded person who invested their hard earned money wants to see plentiful returns. Thus, the safest and guaranteed way to see money rolling back with multiplied amount would be a boy-meets-girl and falls in love cliché. Adds slapstick humor and the rolling back gets faster and reap better.
Bikin Celluloid takes readers to a realm that a visionary Mr.Producer alone is not enough. It takes a supportive crew. From the cameraman, make up artists, props man to the aunties which sweep the floor to anticipate the movie. In the end, the governing bodies should as well aid in the birth of exceptional non-comformist works into the Malaysian movie pool by giving . It all adds up that making a great movie is impossible without the right ecosystem. Mr.Producer is doomed and left speechless by the way his ideas had been hijacked.
Nam’ron
Nobody can give an insight better than the person who is in the industry itself. For Nam’ron, an old timer theater actor, quoted from his blog had deemed our film industry were born with umbilical cords still attached to the fantasy cliché. Not the Star Wars or Avatar type of fantasy. Its good versus evil. Its alim ulamak versus secular jahils and dark versus the light. We will never see those Silence of the Lambs or Shutter Island because it is difficult to swallow.
Nam’ron cleverly draws the parallel between ours and Indonesian sinetrons ( soap operas where a 25 year old son can have a 27 year old mom). He deemed himself as cheap actor, fulfilling side roles which requires minimal appearance. As minimum as possible, almost akin to extras or characters that need to appear less than a minute per episode.Our producers were bound by television networks which are obsessed with pretty face in skin tight jeans and mammary safely held by half-cup bras wrapped in MNG cottons. With their Brazilian keratin treated hair, they take lead roles, usually the good characters facing all these worldly challenges and emerged victorious at the end of the earthshattering clout.
While Namron puts it straight that the main antagonist is not his either, they cast the ugliest face, those which are quickest to hate. Namron never had the space for job, no matter how professional he is and active erstwhile in the theatre scene for many years, television networks are obsessed with pretty face – they don’t bother experience anyway. Namron kept himself in the theatre scene while making himself open for any cable television acting job.
In my opinion, this scramble for pretty face had indeed caused a furore and created bad apples within the pool of talents . That’s why recently we saw the creation of local Paris Hilton in the form of La-Lucah, with spotlight on, they do their bad things and gets the publicity they needed. Generally, stage actors, learned discipline and doing things correctly, shunning their emotions during work while understanding characters that are beyond their nature, they play characters that ordinary people cannot apprehend; A gay, a child from extra-maritial sex, a lesbian, a rapist, an atheist, a pagan and whatnots. Stage actors has panache about acting.
The television actors pledged their faces for certain cable networks and left trails of emotional outburst for paparazzi to pick it up as news materials. Television scripts are mundane fairytale type of things which can be plucked from standart3 textbook “ who-saved-a-cat-and-get-applauded-by-the-teacher-during assembly” kind of things; except the “who’s” is wearing a push-up bra and the teacher wears a tight kebaya. Of course, if possible, the television may have stipulated all the students gathering during the assembly should be hot hunky boys ala-Jacob of Twilight and cherry lips girl. Only one thing stops them. Cost.
This is when Namron jobs fits in. As a ‘cheap labor’ he does the acting when the budget had been eaten up for extremely ugly and extremely pretty cast. He described himself as neither of the one. Neither ugly or pretty. Just a patsy. An instrument, a screw out of the machine that operates on glamour and rating numbers and advertisements. Producers even had to negotiate with cable networks to explain the rational for Namrons involvement. Like I mentioned before, “Namron is in because there is no more money for super pretty and super uglies “.
There you go. Namron had exposed the inner working of our movie industry and expect no changes for at least a few decades.
The Ecosystem
When Namron portrayed the outlook as deplorable and undesirable, there are efforts going in the background to scavenge and work things out. I’ve seen Namron acting in ‘Gadoh’ and ‘Aku Tak Bodoh’, they deliver strong messages that has Namron being ‘gam’ ( another word for banned ), but none bothers Namron, no harm made on him, he lives, work, sleep and think like he does. Namron belonged to a whole new ecosystem, the ecosystem which is sick of the mainstream choking tahyul and boy-meets-girl clichés into the eyes of moviegoers. Namewee, Sharifah Amani to name a few, you won’t or rarely seen them on primetime television. They were long ‘gam-ed’. But that fact won’t squirt not a pee from them. They are safe within the ecosystem.
The ecosystem that im talking about consists of producers and directors that incept, adapt the ideas and gathers the resources. Screenwriters. Casting Agency. Props master. Actors, right down to the people who swept the floor. At the other end, there are moviegoers, those who chuck out their hard earned cash to watch movies, shows and works of these people. What binds this ecosystem is their like-mindedness. Hunger for a change.
Directors like Boris Boo of ‘Aku Tak Bodoh’ fascinates people on his insight of common reality among multicultural Malaysia. The extreme concerns amongst Malaysian onto their young eds. It breaks boundaries and makes us forget our ethnicity once engaged onto the movie. This all eloquently delivered in 120minutes of regret-free movietime. Production need not to replace the I’s in Boris name with 1Malaysia symbol, he is, in a refreshing unforcibly own way, Malaysian.
Mamat Khalid’s ‘ Hantu Kak Limah Balik Rumah’ is clearly a satire taking shots at Malaysia flood of tahyul mahyul movies. A versatile punches and jabs without being offensive towards the intended subject, Mamat Khalid bravely served some good ones to the political realities in Malaysia. Unmistakably, there’s a scene where Pak Jabit says “ kita boleh tukar parti, tak payah buat pilihanraya” ( referring to Perak State Assembly reps switching parties ) Amazingly, it attracts all lapisan masyarakat to watch it. May it be the ones that had been tied to tahyul mahyul for their silly ghosts and serious thinker for the subliminal jabs on current occurrences. And, Yes, Khalid’s “I” have not gotten replaced with 1Malaysia symbol either.
KRU Studios is setting itself apart with daring visual effects and movies with substantial contents. The studio heralded the true Malaysian striving spirit for exceptional quality for SFXs combined with KRU experienced music making, KRU Studios holds the synergy of making a memorable if not successful films. Realistic SFX coupled with good music scores would ring Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in everybody’s mind. Everything is done here on our soil without the need rely on foreign expertise. Ah yes, ask anyone before those KRU brothers raised the benchmark, our SFXs were nothing near 1971 Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back. While most people whine and draw comparisons with directors who’d raised the white flag unable to fulfill such ludicrous demands, KRU Studios stood up to the challenge. Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa is what KRU Studios has in store for us, while its soundtrack; Sedetik Lebih by Anuar Zain is gaining heavy airplay the moment this blog’s written.
Continued with endless backing from movie goers, things seem to look alive again. Alternatives are now within reach. Finas squinted its eyes to see local movies flourish, it’s a matter to channel their resources to those who can really put a ‘ding’ on the industry. Skim Wajib Tayang puts a compulsory screening period on cinema operators to have at least two weeks of movie preview of local titles regardless of reception. Talented scriptwriters are eagerly waiting to show their talent and there are plenty of surprises in the bag for new, bold and daring actors.
Bikin Celluloid ends with Mr.Producer having a latte in a café, and it happens two complete strangers were clamoring for change. Mr.Producer had eavesdropped the conversation and left his two cents: “Maybe in the year 2020, we might see change” ( Mungkin kita dapat tengok perubahan tahun 2020 kot ).
