Cinematic Concerns

The following are my stream of thoughts about the 9 finalists for the BMW Shorties + 1 that got disqualified because it already competed and won some small award at the Astro Kirana short film competition some months ago (which I happened to see).

On the whole, I would say that they are markedly improved - partly because I am biased towards shorts that try to tell a story, rather than trying to prove a point, display the director's apparent artsiness, pretentious pseudo-intellectual shit that I see Malaysian short filmmakers doing and that short film competitions (including past years' BMW Shorties) nominate.

Now that Pn Yasmin's death has gotten everyone lamenting that there aren't any good Malaysian directors anymore and never will be - can you see how absurd that is?? - these shorts here, some of them anyway, remind us that truly, there is still hope.


story is too generic and so is the acting, would like to have seen a less conventional life path mapped out - unless he's trying to make a point that malaysians are all hopeless conformists ... which is of course unlikely ... is she trying to die or look constipated? laughable rather than touching ... production values are not bad, editing transitions in particular are a very nice touch (editor: johan bahar), reminiscent of hot fuzz ... music is good, best thing next to editing, but no composer so copied/stolen from somewhere?

not much in the way of a narrative, was initially bored, but then began to be charmed by the amusing episodes and the bumbling pair, great juxtaposition of Indian music and energetic editing, made possible by cinematography that's designed for said editing

one take shot always commands attention, unfortunately if used without context then it doesnt work ... in this case we're bored by the first two mins then something compelling happens in the final min, yet this story isnt actually best served with long take ... this story is gut wrenching becoz of the heartless brother, and the way i see it it's a good vs evil sort of story when the younger brother takes vengeance ... long take in this case would be about seeing an unconsidered moment happening, a moment of extreme drama or sudden deterioration; which this story is hardly it ... whoever made the music should be shot, melodramatic before the story demanded it, and in fact the one-take might have worked without the music ... the sound editing really ought to be better ... whoever has a name like katak chua either has a really good story behind it or will never break out of cheese and cliche whatever he does in life

second shot i already didn't like, so posey and pointless long static take ... still, it's an amusing concept, wisely the filmmakers chose to use the mockumentary format, and the choice of scenes are far from predictable ... and then the twist hits in the middle - brilliant! ... and then it takes the premise further in a funny episode involving a trainee ... good comic editing ... I expect great things from Jann Rong

apparently has a story, i dunno what that is and, what is infinitely more relevant, i dont care after the halfway point, since the director doesnt seem to care either ... amateurish shots, as per usual in Malaysian uni film student shorts ... chronically overdramatic music, and who taught them not to pay attention to sound design? oddly enough they added foley for the cangkul digging, which would've been admirable had it not been mixed so loudly ... why is this even nominated?

did the director just wasted 7 mins of my time? ... the actor twitches the corner of his lips whenever he doesn't know what expression to give, like so many malaysian actors, all who dont seem to realise that malaysians dont actually do that so much in real life ... a few of the insert shots look nice ... you see, 2 mins in, after the title card, we already suspect that the father is not there when all we hear is offscreen dialogue, so unless you have a good reason to keep us waiting for confirmation whether that is true, you're just boring us with all these non-interesting banter (if the banter was interesting or reveals another layer, that would be another matter) ... apparently such dull mundanity is appealing to my friend Edmund, so it depends on your audience

this short rests entirely on the performance of a monologue by a single actor - so it was terribly lucky that the actor they had was brilliantly spewing out the well-written lines, which was engaging and makes complete use of the inherent rough humour contained in Cantonese speech ... the actor should just be given best actor award; the momentary silent beat halfway into the film is brilliant ... and the camera doing interesting things, indicating its object of temptation, or the rack focus to the street in the distance, etc reminds you that this is a first person POV shot ... and btw, this is a far better use of the single long take than the other short ... the rhetoric on 'life' is actually enlightening and insightful, which is a further plus point ... the fact that there are crew members such as makeup, key grip, gaffer, focus puller, etc makes me happy ... [UPDATE] it seems that the potentially-talented director of this piece has been invited to attend the Pusan Asian Film Academy this year, the sole representative from Malaysia

yes, yes, it is pretty impressive animation work from Malaysians, the level of detail is moderately accomplished by international standards (i.e. far above almost anything I've seen in Malaysia so far), with an okay story, and what I really appreciate is the good use of foley sounds and design effects - and really good choice of music

nicely done brief opening shot ... though first min and half nothing is happening i'm quite taken by the multiple angle handheld cam, which i almost never see Malaysians doing well ... montage of disparate but interesting shots coupled with rambling, aspiring-to-poetry voiceover seems to work here ... felt like the shots were shot across time in all different countries (past holiday trips?) and now pieced together ad hoc; if voiceover didnt work the short would be boring ... in a way it's a break-up letter come alive, made vivid ... and the recipient's final response to it disrupts the audience's viewing of it ... minimalistic sound design/score has a sinister American indie feel to it, which is kinda cool ... what i'm next interested in is whether John Cho can come up with a good narrative feature ...

one of the worst piece of shit I've seen ... what a total waste of time ... how the hell is Astro Kirana giving it awards? oh right, coz its production values was sort of better than the others - well, it's competing with BMW Shorties now, and is rightly dropped off the list

I've been putting off writing this, coz I didn't want to give the wrong impression, and somehow my writing always does. In the end I decided I was doing it more for myself, really. If people misunderstand, I'll ... simply delete the comments.

I've been skimming all the tributes pouring in for Pn Yasmin, most of them celebrating her movies, her ads, and her life - and most lamenting that they hadn't met her and wished they had. I am one of the few privileged enough to have met her, more than briefly, and more than once, though always just for a chat. That was perhaps enough, for any more and I might have broken down a little like a director friend of mine. Instead, I find myself still thinking about the fact that she's gone, about 48 hours after the fact.

I was thinking about it today and realised that she is almost the only person I know who passed on. In all twenty odd years of my life, no one in my immediate family and relatives have managed the feat yet. One or two acquaintances of mine have died, but they're so inconsequential to my life that when their death was announced I mustered a mild and sudden shock, and then continued with homework.

I suppose the thing to do is to do what everyone who knows her is doing nowadays - tell anecdotes of meetings with the woman.

I first came across Pn Yasmin without knowing who she was at a film forum of some sort - this must be around 2002, but I can't really remember anymore. She was there presenting a little film called Rabun, which I have yet to see this day, but that day we were shown the opening scene of the film, which I always remembered because of how simply it was constructed, but it was done in a cute way. Later Pn Yasmin would talk about why it was difficult to release the film: because it involves a very liberal pair of old couple, which reflects Pn Yasmin's own parents (like every other film she does, she takes very closely from her own life, but disguises it enough that we don't think of it as intentionally autobiographical). At one point she described a scene she had to cut (if I remember correctly) because the old woman was, well, masturbating with a pillow. Pn Yasmin proceeded to say, "I have no idea what they're so concerned about. I do it myself!" Loud laughter ensued. I thought she was pretty batty then.

Next time I came across her was when Sepet was about to be released. A uni friend introduced me to her, and I can't remember how long before I connected her to the same lady I saw telling that dirty joke in the hall. I had the usual reaction Malaysians would have had then. What? Sepet? What's it about? Huh, Malay movie right? Dowan to watch lah. Eh, Malay girl and Chinese boy? And in English? Intriguing. Okay, must watch.

I can't remember whether I saw the film first or whether I started following her blog first - those are two separate stories. I remember seeing the film and feeling elated - yes, this is getting much, much closer to the sort of Malaysian film I wanted to see. And yet not quite - I never did like the ambiguous ending; in my opinion, if ever there was an opportunity to milk emotions out of the audience, that was the moment, she just needed to make a choice - happy, tragic, or something else? Instead she gave us nothing. I still don't buy it, but I do recognise that that ending got people thinking and talking about it. People had different interpretations. And they discuss it. It worked that way.

That spring of 2005, I sent her an email about what I thought of Sepet, and other thoughts on Malaysian film. She responded, and ended her email with "do give me a call when you come back on holiday." And included her phone number. I was rather blown away by it, actually. I came back, and called her up, rather nervously. She immediately suggested lunch. She was to go to Hotel Nikko to meet with potential investors - but that she was going to reject them politely, can't remember why. Sure enough she picked Japanese - I have a feeling it's her favourite, Japanese. It was an interesting conversation, mostly because she remained a complete enigma at the end of it. I felt like she didn't find me all that interesting, and I felt like I couldn't penetrate through what I thought were her masks - that constant smile, naughty sense of humour, occasionally defensive quips, a constant habit of deprecating herself or making her humility known. Later I was to learn that those weren't actually masks. I remember her surprising me by her admission that she fell asleep watching Gladiator. You must remember, back then I didn't know of the existence of the arthouse crowd - the idea that people can actually disagree with a film I considered objectively superior was something I would learn, rather painfully, over the years following her blog and observing the world of Malaysian independent cinema.

Her blog. It soon followed that I started to read her writings obsessively, which I did over the course of a year or so. She had many wise things to say - usually procured from other famous directors I barely heard of, or famous philosophers or poets. I thought it pretentious, but not too pretentious - I got that she didn't just pull it out of her ass, that she really likes this stuff. Some of my favourite quotes in life I pulled from her blog. I also started to actively join in on the comments, like many people. She used to get around 200 comments per post, minimum. That became a sore point. I was always wanting to voice my opinions, and thought them legitimate - until other commenters would shoot it down, disparage it, and always in a most unpleasant manner. Once or twice, Pn Yasmin join in as well, criticising the way I tend to say what I say in complicated sentences and structures. She always had a terribly sarcastic way of doing it though. But mostly the problem were with the sycophants, who could see no wrong in what she said or did. After self-abusing myself there for so many months, I basically stopped reading her blog, except occasionally.

Still, there were the movies, and the ads on Youtube. Gubra came along and I thought that was more interesting than Sepet. I never got to see Mukhsin. And meanwhile she was picking up awards here and there, so much that one took it for granted, really. Meanwhile, I stopped following her career so closely, and began to pay attention to the other Malaysian independent filmmakers ... much to my disappointment, generally.

I met up with her again, summer of 2006. I wasn't sure she still remembered me, but she said she does. At the time I was most interested with the fact that she announced a May 13th project, so I questioned her about it. Again her answers were elusive, always clouded with some wisecracking quip. All I got out of it was that it was not about what we thought it would be, that it would not be about the violence of that date in the year 1969.

Then I went to film school. And I followed news about her even less.

At that point, having grown up and matured rather more in terms of knowing world cinema and its relation to the Hollywood juggernaut, and where the Malaysian film industry lies within that landscape, I mostly thought of Pn Yasmin as a future competitor - my friend Edmund says it best, an imaginary competitor. The truth is, I was never that enamoured with her films. Over time I found them dull, somewhat contrived, with a sameness that began to feel boring. I was not understanding the way some people were appreciating her films, why they got so emotional about it. But I always come back to the fact that I'd rather watch her films over other Malay movies any day. Ultimately, she remains the only Malaysian director to successfully occupy that space that is neither far right into the comfortable but trashy zone of Malay mainstream movies or the extreme left of self-centred, stubbornly arthouse Malaysian independent cinema.

I met Pn Yasmin for the third and last time at the Pusan International Film Festival last year, where she was screening Muallaf. She still remembers me, she claims, which if true is a remarkable feat. I say that because so many people clamour for her attention, and I cannot say that my existence has made any impact on her in any way. Anyway, I asked her whether she was bored watching her film by then, she exclaimed that that was the first time she is watching Muallaf on the big screen. We then talked about film festivals, how I was not really enjoying this one so far, and her saying that, well, she's rather more interested in seeing the cities than the films, usually. She then produces a Hacks sweet, and tells me to crack it in half with my teeth. I say she should do it. She says, nolah, after her teeth broken, how? Now that is so quintessential Yasmin.

I saw Muallaf and, again, same thing, I wasn't entirely taken by the film, gave it a 6/10. But meanwhile, she already had another film in the works, Talentime. Finally, I figured, she was gonna make something a little bit more mainstream. How wrong I was. (I know, some of you are wondering, who are you to dictate what she does? That would be missing the point. Not once did I dictate; and this is Yasmin Ahmad we're talking about, how the hell am I able to dictate? It was just a wish to see her do something I would genuinely enjoy. Perhaps a tad selfish. But it's honest.) Again I was somewhat disappointed. I gave it 7/10 in my opinion.

I wonder now what she thought of my reviews. Was she annoyed? Did she feel betrayed, considering that all three times I met her I always greeted her with a friendly face? It's all very presumptuous, almost embarrassing, actually, to ponder these thoughts. I hope she didn't care.

Ultimately, my feelings about Pn Yasmin over the years can best be described as love-hate. I am, all at once, proud that we have her winning awards for Malaysia, ambivalent about her films, irritated by her sycophants, admiring of her intellectual clarity, confident I could do better than her (despite not having produced a single shred of evidence, as of this moment, of being capable of directing a great feature), worried that my reviews will make her drop me from her Facebook account, and expecting her to be around long enough so that when I finally make my feature she can comment on it. Even if she didn't like it.

Such is her allure.

It's been said many times now, and I wish I could find a more elegant way of saying it, but it's true. We all took for granted she, the godmother of new Malaysian cinema, would be around longer. We thought she would make perhaps a dozen more films. Which, a year ago, would have seemed like a chore, since they're all gonna feel the same anyway - now, I wish she'd been around to make them coz I wouldn't have minded. So what if they're all just slightly disappointing to me, and similar to every other film she directed. Gimme that over [name your Malay studio film/Malaysian independent film]. She was also courageous, willing to fight the system, and she would've been a perfect, though perhaps unwitting, crusader towards the abolition of all crappy Malay studio movies, towards a better Malaysian cinema. That would've been the dream.

Coming back to the tributes towards Pn Yasmin. People talk about her films. Her ads. The truth is, the thing I like most about Yasmin Ahmad isn't her body of work. It's her.

She was just a really, really nice woman, great fun to hang out with. To me at least, her best virtue is her sincerity.

Meanwhile, her passing also puts down forever the perpetual question that she has been plagued with in the past decade. You know which one.

It's been 48 hours and I'm still thinking about it. I still have her business card, her phone number on my contact list, and a few email correspondences in my mailbox.

But I'm slowly beginning to see that perhaps her impact will be more clearly seen years from now. That though I don't really know her, she has impacted the development in my path to becoming a filmmaker. It's all very subtle.

Malaysian Director Ahmad Dead

26 July 2009 7:16 AM, PDT

Controversial Malaysian director Yasmin Ahmad has died. She was 51.

The moviemaker passed away on Saturday after suffering a brain hemorrhage, according to local media reports.

Ahmad roused outrage in her mostly Muslim homeland after documenting inter-racial romances in her pictures.

She was honoured at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2007, picking up two awards for her movie Mukshin, which portrayed love in pre-teens.

Ahmad also won a string of prizes for 2004 romantic comedy Sepet, which told the tale of a teenage Malay girl who falls in love with a Chinese boy.

Mukshin sparked criticism from Islamic leaders in 2007, who blasted the film for encouraging women to behave like men, branding her work "immoral".

General Curtis LeMay writes: "At first they thought we were bluffing ... There wasn't any mass exodus until we knocked the hell out of the first three towns on the list. Then the rest were practically depopulated in nothing flat." The leaflets had a crushing impact on civilian morale, producing defeatism and terror. Their government, the Japanese people realised, was powerless to protect them.

... LeMay was convinced he "could bomb and burn them [Japanese cities, eventually 60-odd in total] until they quit", avoiding a humanly costly invasion of the Japanese home islands. He informed General Arnold, however, that by October [1945] he would run out of cities to burn, except for four he had been ordered not to touch – Kyoto, Niigata, Kokura, and Hiroshima. LeMay soon learned why they were off-limits to him.

Geddes Mumford, son of Lewis and Sophia Mumford. He was ruggedly handsome, an outdoorsman, an avid hunter and fisherman with a wild streak that sometimes got him in trouble with his parents and teachers.

He was sent to Italy during the war.


Just before Geddes went overseas, his mother wrote:

I find myself waking up in the middle of the night and thinking about you and about the other boys at war and hating civilians, and hating being a civilian. ... We can't all go off to war, I know. But we could all be in the war to the same extent. ... I find it intolerable that with eight million men under arms the rest of the country's population can go ahead living as they please, with no compulsion toward the common goal ...
Seeing what you have become, Geddes my darling, has given me a great thrill of pride. God bless you and keep you well.
With deep love, Your Mother.

Geddes reached Italy in June and got his first taste of combat the following month. After a long silence, his worried parents finally heard from him that July:

Your dear little boy has finally seen the more gruesome side of this man's war. I celebrated my birthday by coming as close to getting killed as I ever want to. I felt the machine gun bullets passing my shoulder. Two of my buddies were hit by the same burst. It's a great life if you like excitement.
It's not all that rough, don't you worry.

All that summer, Lewis wrote to his son, asking him to describe what combat was like so he could share Geddes' experience with him in his imagination and feel closer to him. On August 14, Geddes finally answered him:

Dear Dad:
While I have written you several letters since I have been in combat I, as you know, have refrained from describing the nature of fighting because of the difference of experience between you and I. It is impossible to make a person who has not been in combat understand it fully. I'll do what I can though and just hope you get something from it.

Fighting behind enemy lines, alone in the night, Geddes had killed his first German. That had been scary, he told his father, but nothing compared to being shelled:

You hear a shell coming two or three second before it hits. ... It's the ones that come fast and at you that really scare. You just hit the ground and wait. Wonder if it's got your dog tag number on it. If it's a really close one you don't hear it until the moment before it hits. That fraction of a second between the time it stops hissing and before it explodes gets pretty long. When those moments start coming every few seconds it gets pretty hard. I've seen men cry like babies after they have been under it too long. I've seen men almost unable to walk just from nervous exhaustion. ...
The small arms part of war is all right. It's a deadly but exciting game; an overdone version of hunting. The artillery, bombs, rockets, and mortars are the hard part. You have no personal comeback against them. You can shoot a man, but you can only hope and wait with a shell. Killing a man in war leaves almost no mark on a man's soul. It's the wine and crunch of shells and the mutilated bodies of your buddies and friends that tears a man to pieces.
You have asked me for a description of combat. I've done what I can. Maybe your writer's imagination will help you a bit. There's only one way to really find out and you can thank your damn lucky stars you're not in the infantry overseas to do it.
There it is Dad.
Love
Geddes

On September 6, Geddes' division moved across the Arno. Before he went into combat, Geddes wrote his parents, trying to explain why he and his fellow GIs found it so difficult to tell people back home what they were experiencing:

It's hard for men, who live only because they co-operate, to explain things to people who live only as semi-isolated individuals. A front line soldier will almost always give you half of his last dollar or one of his last two cigarettes. An American civilian finds it hard to lend you half of his surplus.
A man who has gone but a few hundred yards with death in his footsteps and the dear of God in his heart appreciates his fellow man just a bit more than before. The returning front line soldier will find himself, first shoked and then embittered by this difference in outlook. This will be one of the problems of a post-war world.

In his next letter, Geddes told his worried parents he had no great urge to be a hero:

... A Purple Heart is something I don't intend to get. With luck, I'll be home for my next birthday.

He never made it.


Wrote WWII cartoonist Bill Maudlin:

When you lose a friend, you have an overpowering desire to go back home and yell in everybody's ear, 'This guy was killed fighting for you. Don't forget him – ever. Keep him in your mind when you wake up in the morning and when you go to bed at night. Don't think of him as a statistic which changes 38,788 casualties to 38,789. Think of him as a guy who wanted to live every bit as much as you do.'

DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004)

A good trailer for a horror movie that starts off really selling the beautiful everyday moments and then degenerates into more and more horrific images of a zombie apocalypse that seemingly shreds the image itself up in the end. Well-executed concept.

ATONEMENT (2007)

With its very distinctive opening music (which we later find out is actually from the score composed for the film) we are plunged into a montage of rhythmic cuts to the behaviours of various characters that hints at a story but doesn't reveal anything. This gives way to a lush and melancholically romantic piece of music, and even more stylish and emotionally potent shots. I saw the trailer over and over again while waiting for the film to be released.

SYRIANA (2005)

This is a very hard sell as far as Hollywood movies go, and certainly its complicated multi-plot storylines must have given nightmares to the trailer editors. As such it is quite an achievement that, with clever usage of percussive music and skilled assembly of various seemingly disparate pieces of intriguing dialogue lines, the editors managed to fashion a very exciting thriller - and to top that, they even used Moby's God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters.

I also liked the way it displayed the names of the very large cast, cut to the urgent sound of Arabic drums.

STAR TREK (2009)

Taking an already intriguing scene from the film and re-editing it down for the opening quarter of the trailer, the really fast-paced and intense feel left one panting for more - and more it does give. One is left wondering - what, this is Star Trek? And then you begin to see stuff that begins to remind one but never entirely resembles the Star Trek of old, and you begin to understand where the movie is going, which is something totally different. Furthermore, the scenes are cut together with an eye and ear to rhythm against a modified version of Brian Tyler's theme to Children of Dune, and all the major actors are introduced, if briefly - including the coolest shot of John Cho in his entire career.

HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY (2005)

A movie like this offered a chance for the trailer editors to riff upon the conventions of movie trailers in general - and they did so with maximum gusto and humour. For people who didn't know the story to H2G2, they probably just thought it was clever, until they saw the movie, and then they go 'oh ...'.

PEARL HARBOR (2001)

Whatever you thought of the film, the trailer works. Its lush and melodramatic music has a certain solemn gravitas - obviously perfect for a romantic picture set in the midst of the tragedy of Pearl Harbor. (First Believe In Angels from the score of The Crow by Graeme Revell, then Goliath, by Steve Jablonsky.) Combined with the Michael Bay shots that is typically stylish and colour-saturated, the trailer is almost better than the film itself.

CLOVERFIELD (2008)

No other recent film in history has profited so handsomely in promotional terms from its use of the movie trailer - and, in this case, achieved so simply by taking away the most fundamental information that every trailer is expected to have, i.e. the title of the movie. Beyond that, it's also the way the trailer - without showing anything more than what is in the first act - informs the audience what kind of movie it is (i.e. a sort of Blair Witch Project style hyperreal film about a catastrophic event in NYC), and totally hooks the audience to find out more with the little information they had.

ALEXANDER (2004)

I literally watched and re-watched this trailer over a hundred times in the months waiting for the movie to be released. Regardless of whether you've seen the movie or not, and if you did you probably didn't enjoy it as much as I do (which is a lot), the trailer was INTENSE.

The choice of music - Clash Of Arms by X-Ray Dog - is a major factor, but on top of that are the impressive war images and what seems to be a barrage of screaming characters. And then the dialogue - oh, the dialogue! Especially potent was Angelina Jolie's banshee-like delivery of "In my womb I carried my avenger!" There isn't even a way to indicate in writing the full emotionality of her delivery of that line. And the trailer ends with an appropriate echoing of Colin Farrell's Alexander's desperate cry for posterity.

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004)

Few movie trailers depended ever so heavily on perfectly tailor-made music than this film. Composed specially for the trailer by the eventual film composer John Debney, it's the sort of music that makes one's hair stand - and, edited with rhythm to the film's solemn and provocative visuals, it really helped convince those who saw it that this is one of the must-see films of the year, Christian or not.

So good was the music here that nothing John Debney did for the film itself ever came close to what you hear in the trailer.

SPIDER-MAN 2 (2004)

This trailer follows the standard - you may even say clichéd - formula for movie trailers, in particular for trailers to sequels, where we introduce the hero who is back to his normal life, somewhat, before we break into ominous music and threatening dialogue, which finally gives way to an explosive climax. Well, this trailer got everything right - with an exceptional movie with exciting shots to back it, the final climactic montage had perhaps the best piece of trailer music signifying high stakes and intense heroism ever accompany a series of beautifully conceived images of Spider-Man's desperate battles against Doc Ock and various other problems and disasters. And to top it all, it ends with a scene which reveals all except the very last moment of that scene - which greatly heightens the stakes for Spider-Man, and deceptively gives you the impression that you've just been given a major spoiler.

Basic point is, it makes you want to see this film, very much. Great trailers do that.