talentime (2008). directed by yasmin ahmad.

as a rule i dont watch malay movies at the cinema. i am a fluent malay speaker and yet i often do not understand what a malay movie is about. i often got lost along the way because the characters are not interesting, the story is dull and silly and the direction sucked. and its always the same faces and half of them cant act. anyway, i managed to broke the rule last friday and gave talentime (2008) a shot. i am not a yasmin ahmad's fan by the way. i know she has this indie thing going but it's too basic for me. however this movie showed a huge improvement on her part as a director, and i like that the story is tightly edited and flowed smoothly, something that malay movies could never muster.

this one works in many levels. when the light shuts down one by one, you know despite anything, life goes on. life is full of sadness, but they are not defeated by it. because they have love in their hearts that crowns over something as cancerous as prejudice. i hope we all have that, somewhere in our hearts.

gubra (2006). directed by yasmin ahmad.

i finally got around to watch gubra last raya, as it was shown on ch4. i quite like yasmin's first effort, so i thot i gave this one a try.

i made a mistake of thinking the movie was trying too damned hard, and indeed, it had. so i ended up disappointed at the outcome of my prediction.

i seriously have a problem with yasmin ahmad's way of telling the story. im no stranger to 3 part movies, which is a perfectly good idea to implement if you wanna joined up 3 seemingly disparate stories to a common theme, or situation. i dun even have a problem if the imam talked or patted the dog or the hookers, i mean, bring it on, i can even handle aliens if that is what she wants. what i have a problem is when she is testing my patience with that damned, outdated camera work of hers that she seemed to be so fond of, because that's the slowest snail paced movie ive ever watched. my brother said she wants you to float with the hopelessness of the situation, but i dun buy that crap. as if she wanna test you, if you can stand to listen to the clock ticking while she slowly unveils whatever, then she's gonna congratulate you for staying on, hence, appreciating the scenes. crap. i watched terrence mallick stuff and i have no problem with taking time to tell your story but deliberately wasting time is just stupid. the stories just do not convey because she doesnt tell them as well as it should be.

another thing that i dun see ppl commenting abt the movie is how glaringly wrong for sharifah amani to win whatever award it is for her role. when i saw the teaser on tv i thot the guy who played her husband is a child molester for cohabiting with her cuz like it or not, she's wayyy to young to pass off as a career woman. that miscast alone is a mistake.

as i was saying earlier, i was gubra-ed. literally.

sepet (2004). directed by yasmin ahmad.

yesterday nite, after much deliberations with my sisters, we settled to watch sepet for our saturday late nite movie this week. the other sister was huge on johnny depp and hugh laurie and john cusack, while the other warned me about how sepet is ultra pretentious that i would have the same exact hatred as her for the movie when the credits rolled at the end. here am i, with two choices in hand, an overdose of mr depp flamboyance or a movie ive been ignoring for the sake of the hype rule. i for one, havent watch sepet until now because i have a rule against currently hyped movies (or anything else for that matter, so you know im slow on the uptake of anything new because i feel safe viewing the world with skepticism), not that ive bought the stupid allegations thrown towards yasmin ahmad abt this and that, mostly irrelavant anyway.

i thot the movie is sweet, contemporary and honest that i find it surprising now, as i recalled, various quarters condemning the movie for being un-malay, un-malaysian etc. i relate to the on goings in the movie, malaysians being so close, but always at arm's length for god knows what reasons (sorry, we know the reasons, right?) the dialogues are incredibly simple yet true, that i thot every malaysians should have thot abt the issues potrayed one way or the other. i especially liked the scene in the hospital, with keong and jason, when keong said he never not like the malays, just that he hasnt thot abt them. by right, there's nothing new to be learn, other than to accept the realities of life in this country. if there's anything to be learned, it has to be for us to start doing something about it, rather than leave it to the so called able hands of our trusted leaders (and no, i dont trust them, they are scum for one thing, they play the race card and most recently, the religion card, all the time).

those local directors that have taken their time and effort to bash yasmin are jerks, and most embarassingly, i have a strange feeling that these people have never watched a single quality flick in their whole directing lives that even something as simple as sepet make them fall off their seats. the preoccupations with titbids and petty details like orked's dressing (my sister was annoyed at the baju kurung switchings) etc are silly, who doesnt wear anything else at some point in time anyway? but you go girl, for someone who cares more for bird flu killing ducks in her backyard, i hope for you to take the world.