The Freak Show

rarities, oddities, defects and such. Like human physical, the mankind emotion is full of them

There is a notion amongst moviegoers. “I want to go to cinemas and have a good time” Good time can come in several pleasant combination; a short line of  ques, problem-free ticket purchase online, a great company of friends and loved ones and warm popcorns that are not pre-packed and left to cool down along the counter. In short, a good time at cinema is a movie that does not tire your brain digesting it. It as easy as “happily living ever after” or “good triumph over evil”

Amongst the actor, they are more likely to take up good, positive and protagonist characters onto their portfolio. It poses fewer challenges. A good character does a stoic sympathetic face, It attracts good karma and garners admiration by fans. No actors/actresses badly want a prostitute, pimp or gambler role on the silver screen. Bad, for most actors is the third entity in love triangle, but not to such badassery of mentioned above roles. Off camera, there is no fear of living and being associated with bad character they brought. Its play safe.

Amongst the director they want to do an easy-to-digest movie. Like baby food, movies should be fluid and quick to pass the throat and into stomach, so that the next can be fed more and more and more. Directors dislike( in my words, failed ) to articulate characters in a subliminal way – so a gangster must obviously spoken “ lu, gua, lu, gua “ and a businessman must have emphasis on scene where they chaired meetings and discuss about selling stocks and arranging meeting with fictitious Mr.Yamamoto from Japan.

Producers choose to fund “feel good” movie. At this time of writing, feel good movies can assert itself as escapism cum fairy tale. Like the recurring theme of poor god-loving tudung girl marrying a filthy rich man but along the way, a jealous girl tries to wreck the relationship and you’ll shed a few tears before the epic ending. Suggestive titles like Dhia, Levender, Elysa, April, Qaseh and a whole lot of contemporary feminine names pulls young girls with identity clout to say “hey, this film is like a mirror to my life! Lets watch it!” adds the variety to this subgenre.

Sponsors are more likely to contribute their merchandise/product to movies that convey positive messages in it. Besides, what would a product be any good if they pour sponsorship upon actors which played the role of a , say… a pimp, a gambler or a prostitute. On a bright side, even though it made them look more pimpy and first class prostitute respectively, still, a no-go. Definitely, a clothing company wouldn’t want people saying “ Yeah! This is what a pimp/hoes/hustler use “

Is Malaysian films that FUBAR ?

I got that skeptical look from my father. “ What a bad film title!? “, he hasn’t watched Malay even Malaysian movies since forever. He is a keen movie goer. The recent title was Dream House starring Daniel Craig, which is a lukewarm Hollywood product (I admit,I watched it too). I persuaded further to convince him to watch this film, I even said it had artistic flavors of arwah Yasmin Ahmad – Plus, Syafie Naswip is amongst the cast, " Syafie Nas what...? "my father again gave me the skeptical and uncertainty look. Even the versatile late filmmaker cannot leverage the film that it’s no typical Malay movie made by someone awarded Professor Madya.

I do not even have assurance that the film would be good, I only relied on scarcely available movie reviews. I defy the old saying ‘never judge a book by its cover’, im utterly convinced by the film poster which is plain minimalistic but well thought out ( coming from architecture background, less is absolutely more )

Finally he let himself in, the whole family watched the movie at a cinema in Seberang Prai. We remained seated for the next 100 minutes, thus, exiting the cinema, we did not say much. Until at one moment my dad mentioned one of the strings of praise for the movie “ Watching Fauzi Nawawi playing a pimp is likeable! He really knows how to act! ”

Along the way back to Sungai Petani, he kept non-verbatim mentioning lines from the movie like “minta berkat” ( a scene where Shaheizy Sam being cynical to his new boss )   “ Ad! Jahanam kereta aku “ ( again Am scolded his brother spontaneously went on fire inside confinement of a wreck Saga )“ Anak kalau kecil kecil memang comel, bila dah besar, baru tau “ ( Am confronts Hawa after she refuses to sell her father-less baby to a syndicate), we laughed calling back the fragments of the film scene that still vividly runs in our mind.

On serious note, he praised the humanity aspect which is portrayed by Ad, the character which regularly visits an old prostitute and believed (or might have) been his mother. The theme and portrayal of the modus operand of human trafficking. The heavy subject which became the spotlight, and the intricate, scene by scene that unwrap the storyline very delightfully albeit with a help of thinking until the ending credits ( bet, who would like to do thinking inside a cinema? A library is probably the better place to do so ) .

My Malay-cinemaphobic dad gives 8 out of 10 rating for Songlap. Thats impressive. Isn’t that eye opening for him?

Leaving Normalcy At The Door

Songlap is a movie that will never eclipse, even, matched the collection made by Osman Alis Ombak Rindu also playing along currently. Judging by the attendees of the cinema that day (Saturday) , Songlap might not recover their filming budget of RM1.5 million. But Songlap successfully distanced itself from other archetypical Malay (yes, im tired of using the word typical ) as a brave realist sociocritique movie. It did more than distance, but joins a niche distinct class of its own following the footsteps of Perempuan Jalang dan … )

On socioritique alone, a film cannot fascinate. Songlap cannot achieve this without a combination of chemically compatible cast, intuition-defying storytelling , witty scripts and daring filming methods. Front lined by triple-S ( Shaheizy, Syafie and Sara Ali ), these actors really packed a punch to provide consistent drive force to the film. Shaheizy Sam which I started to notify how startling his acting when he played a blind man in a teledrama years ago, never disappoints. Sam move to never let ( or he got tired )‘Metrowealth’ encapsulate him and sucking him dry on recurring stagnant themes , is definitely a smart move. What recurring theme? Well, a hint, In Songlap, his character, Am, owns a car to spin around Yipee! Syafie Naswip acting has found new leash of life after the departure of Yasmin Ahmad. Sara Ali ,an architecture degree holder in real life, effectively plays the moody post-natal mother of child born out of wedlock

Secondary ensemble, includes Normah Damanhuri which played an old hoes and takes rm30 per half hour of feel good session, he is accompanied with Chipun, a pimp that would woo men and women to visit his red lit little ‘happy house’, he is brilliantly played by Fauzi Nawawi. Eliza Wong played Mama, a women that runs the baby mill house and his strings of Chinese staff that forged documents through Photoshop CS5, cooks and manage the house. Omar Abdullah plays a father that shamelessly raped his daughters ( yes, raped two daughter to get that animalistic libido done )

Intuition defying is best described when audience actually nodded or bemoans oh! and ah! at certain important juncture of the story. I was led to believe the story would be going somewhere, but as the seam connects, it turns out to be the other way around. Yet it still floats and maintains my keen to follow-on till finishing, nothing of the misleading crap that makes you want to walk out of cinema.

Finding dark and tight corners in KL for filming to realize the sinful nature of the film theme is a technical challenge. In Songlap there are no Japanese sport cars burning its rubbers on Dataran Merdeka or exploding upon crash, the focus of cinematographer is  simply human emotions – and to capture the dynamics of human emotion from stressed, to fear, to hopelessness, to the expensive 'I-don’t-know what to say’ face is priceless. Added doing scenes during night time? Clearly a humongous challenge there. No wonder even Professor Madya like to do daytime scene and having comedian-actor ensemble to do….., what else…., comedies, because that’s the challenges befitting the title Professor Madya.

Effendee Mazlan and Fariza Azlina Isahak are penggiat seni that have closed the 2011 chapter of Malaysian film industry with an eye opener, for those who chooses to still take the dreamboat washed by ombaks and gelora, that’s their choice. We cannot line them up and force them to watch something as realist as SONGLAP. Life is not all about sugar, SONGLAP hits me like a freak show, A freak show would have weird human oddities, defects and abnormalities for display – oddly enough SONGLAP had drawn similar projection of the ugly heads of whats life and how people got through it, felt as good as reading Shahnon Ahmad Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan, A.Samad Said Salina and Abdullah Hussein IMAM .


 I did walk out of cinema hall feeling good after all.