was busy with school and exams. however, i managed to catch a malaysian flick featured at moma. its a movie that came out in 2006, i think, entitled, mukhsin, directed and cowritten by yasmin ahmad. it has been something 15 years or maybe even more since the last time i watch a malay movie. plus i haven't seen many of the recent ones. well, except for p.ramlee's old movies which are always a classic. i read about the movie in new york times and found out that the movie won 2 awards during the berlin film festival in 2007, so, it has to be something.
the plotline is really simple actually where it revolves around a 10-year-old orked and a 12-year-old boy, mukhsin. around this relatively simple plotline of a blossoming young romance between the film's two young protagonists, are scenes of typical malaysian kampung life and the dynamics of different types of families that revolve around Orked and her mother, father, and the family's maid.
the other families which are given attention in the movie are mukhsin's family (with his elder brother who has lost his way in life and is trying desperately to find their mother who abandoned them at a young age, and their aunt who is trying to take care of the two boys as though they were her own), and orked's neighbours , one with the young daughter and pregnant mother who are hurt by the husband who wants to abandon them to take on a second wife.
the way the movies portrays a typical malaysian kampung life, it is as if you can feel the heat of the tropical weather back home eventhough i am away from home; the sweat, the heat and the smell of it all. the casts were good but somewhat looked a bit stiff and arkward at times but i supposed the director did so to capture the film's calm acuity. the character orked and mukhsin was played pretty well by both actors. i just wish the movie use more old malay music such as the keroncong which i thought was an excellent song that became the title track of the movie.
in short, the movie was great. it was like a breath of fresh air, at least for me. hope to see more movies like this and as good as this from malaysia.
2 comments:
hi kadazan man,
i love mukhsin too. did a post in my blog too. and i can imagine you watching it in NY??? wow....
i totally agree wif you tat mukhsin is a breath of fresh air. tat's y i dragged my frens to watch Yasmin Ahmad's previous 2 movies in cinema as soon as it shows cox i know the screening will not be long.
yes, i saw it in new york. found out about it from the paper and yasmin ahmad's blogpage. i also saw bits and pieces of sepet on youtube and it looks like a good movie too. i wish the malaysian tourism board could do something about promoting malaysian movies in new york. something like mini malaysian film fest in new york. or maybe they already did it, i don't know. either way, this will surely be an incentive to local movie makers to get a bit of exposure in new york. i'm pretty sure people would come in flocks. trust me, new york city is filled with people who are interested about other culture from other parts of the world or something new and exotic. come to think about, there are a lot of p.ramlee's movie that's worth showing here in new york. i hope someone is reading this and i don't mind investigating about it.
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