On Films and Yasmin Ahmad.

THE Storyteller that all Malaysians should be proud of.

Films can have a lot of meaning. A lot of intention. They may show the reality, or they may show the director’s certain expectation from the reality that they live. They may be empty for the purpose of showing pure entertainment and they may be full of moral messages up to the point of people ignoring it for their complexity. They may show propaganda, they may show lies.

In my opinion, a good film shoud both be entertaining and educating at the same time. The message must be strong yet subtle and simple, not to burden the viewer with too many complexities. And to do this requires the director to be very intelligent – a skill that not everyone has.

On educating the masses – it’s no easy job, akin to a preacher preaching to a large group of people about a certain message. Amidst all the directors in Malaysia, I am proud we have someone like Yasmin to educate Malaysians citizens, and of course bringing Malaysians films to the next level (I’m sure my friend Jimi knows best!). With many more stories to tell, I hope she doesn’t stop halfways.

I was so delighted to find these verses in Yasmin Ahmad’s blog’s past archive (from her interview with Focus Film):

FF:
You have also taken a lot of criticism for your other films i.e. Sepet and Gubra where you tread on religious, culturally and racially sensitive issues. How do you see yourself as a contemporary filmmaker in multi-racial Malaysia?

YA:
I just see myself as someone who holds up a mirror to Mankind. I’m not so socio-centric; I just want to examine the human condition and nothing pleases me more than to hear that some people from another part of the world laughed and cried when they saw my film. I don’t care about national and political borders so much, but only insofar as they create interesting differences in culture and tradition. The fact that Malaysia is multi-racial is really not such a big deal to me. The world is multi-racial. That is a great blessing from God, and I don’t understand why some people treat it like a curse.

” I don’t understand why some people treat it like a curse”.

This is the simplest message yet one of most difficult concept for an ordinary human being to comprehend.

She talks about differences in life. Differences of human being, differences of heart, differences of superficial appearence, color of skin, hair, color of eyes, etc.

Yet her message is strong and clear – ignoring all the superficial differences and just concentrate on our similarities.

Beautifully done, dear Yasmin, your films are beautifully done, indeed. But reduce all the unnecessary elements of “ciuman, pelukan, dakapan, elusan, gentelan, pautan, gomolan, belaian, pegangan, ramasan, picitan, urutan, hempukan, goyangan, dukungan, kucupan, rabaan, geleman”, will ya? The message is clear yet these unnecessary elements may disrupt the process of educating.

See also:

• Yasmin The Storyteller
• Gubra Yang Sesat Lagi Menyesatkan by Faisal Tehrani