FILM REVIEW - 4

Hantu Kak Limah Balik Rumah was created by Mamat Khalid on 2011. The story was about Husin has been working in Singapore for some time and decides to return to his hometown, Kampung Pisang. Upon returning, he feels that his neighbour Mak Limah is strange as she does not speak and sleep. After that he tells villagers at the Mamak stall that Mak Limah might be a ghost. Pak Abu decides they should investigate further but when they go to her house, she is already a rotting corpse! However, things get more interesting when the village is haunted by strange occurrences, despite the burial of Kak Limah.

The director presents some of the political situations of Malaysia in this film. For example:

1. The old leader wants to change the leader without hold the election. The young villagers disagree with it but they don’t have voice out their opinion. However, one of the villagers said that the way of old leader do is different from the young generation. So, we should pass out to the new generation to continue and serve the people.

2. In a scene, Hussein said that he want to bring along his fiancée to leave the village because he hoped the government would give him some subsidy when he was in the Banana Village but he didn’t get it. After he worked at Singapore, he became a supervisor. In this situation its means that government doesn’t care about the small village so the villager try to find a way to build up their economy.

3. The SGD currency rate is different with Malaysia ringgit. It will higher than Malaysia, so many people like to work at Singapore is part of the reason. As Hussein also has mentioned in the film, his salary is 2000 sin dollar so he can married with his fiancée. Nowadays, Malaysia ringgit is getting lower and economic is not good as past, so we have to think before we use the money.

What is the genre of this film?

It is a mix genre for this film. In this film, it includes fiction, comedy, horror and mystery. The director, Mamat Khalid used different genre to attract audiences instead of 1 genre. So that, it will be more interesting compare to others film.

How do you think about the development of commercial film in Malaysia?

We use history of Malaysian cinema to explain the development of commercial film in Malaysia.

Most of the P. Ramlee’s films do not portray Islamic rituals but focus on one’s characters and actions in 1929 - 1973. However, all the themes of films from late of 1940-60s were focused on royal transgressions, unrequired love, forced marriage or evil stepmother. Moreover, P.Ramlee’s first directional effort touched on social and economic divisions within the Malay community, a theme constantly returned to in his work.

After that, Merdeka studios produced 14 films in black and white and many of the films were unsuccessful. In 1964, Shaw Brothers bought over Merdeka Studios and renamed it as Merdeka Film Productions. However, today, it is the headquarters of the FINAS.

FINAS is a response to the community’s appeal for government assistance to improve and develop the industry by various means including the provision of research and advisory services. FINAS stipulated that a company can only do two of three functions which mean production, distribution or exhibition in order to avoid monopoly by a certain party.

Other than that, government creates a film censorship law in Malaysia to regulate the production and exhibition of local and foreign films in post 1980. Government will ban some of the film that includes any communication topic about religious, culture and political. Moreover, filmmakers concerned with film as commentaries to socio-political issues. For example, the director used different ways to show the current political situation of Malaysia instead of present it directly in the film of Hantu Kak Limah Balik Rumah.

In my opinion, we suggest to provide subtitle in every film no matter it is a Malay, Indian or Chinese film. It is because audience will very hard to understand some of the message that character want to bring out. For example, Hantu Kak Limah Balik Rumah film without any subtitle, so the audiences are very hard to understand their conversation especially they speak very fast.