FILM REVIEW - 1

Today I am going to discuss about the film review which is “Perempuan, Isteri, dan…”

 “Perempuan, Isteri, dan…” is more focus on the stereotyping of a female image. The structure of this film can forms the meaning like the sexual differences in terms of visual preparation that often neglected.

In 1980-s the Malaysia alternative filmmakers have brought a different perspective and a unique style in their film production. U-Wei Haji Saari, he is the first alternative filmmaker in 1990-an. He also is a director of “Perempuan, Isteri, dan…”

U Wei Haji Saari

The actual title of this film is “Perempuan, Isteri, dan Jalang”. But the Lembaga Penapis Filem censored the word “Jalang”, because the meaning of Jalang is Bitch and it is not suitable in the Malaysia context. They use the symbols to replace the word Jalang when the film is only permitted to release in Malaysia cinema after the title change to “Perempuan, Isteri, dan…”. It is because the word of“Jalang” is considered as a sensitive word in the Malaysian contexts.

This is a controversial social film about a bride – Zaleha who elopes with another man to Thailand on her wedding day. However, her groom - Amir tracks down Zaleha, and force her to be a prostitute. After 6 months, Zaleha tricks him into marrying her and bring her back to their village. Zaleha causes a social upheaval in her village by encouraging other women to be more independent and by enticing other men and to have affairs with her in order to vengeance against Amir.  

After 6 months how the Zaleha was treated by Amir?

Amir treats her very bad and calls her prostitute often. He does not allow Zaleha sleep on the bed. Amir is always scolding and ignoring what Zaleha said when he brings her back from the Ong Chai.

How was the Zaleha revenge against Amir?

She try to convince and encourage village women more independent and brave to pursue the things that they needs and wants when Amir bring her back to the village and still ignore her. Moreover, she has an affair and unusual relationship with the other man in the jungle while Amir is working.

My Opinion

I am very surprise about this film because it portrayals of sexual desire among men and women. It expresses many movement, gestures and bodies with sexy behaviour. In my mind, I think that Malay film do not show this kind of behaviour and scene on the screen since our country is more conservative. Other than that, the film shows that men are more powerful in the village because they can make decision and control the women. However, everything had been changed because of Zaleha appeared. She made the women or girls brave to voice out what they wants and needs. It shows that Zaleha is a dominant woman in the village since she has the power to persuade the women voice out.

#18 October 1987

The Big Durian Documentary created on 2003 by Amir Muhammad. The story was about racial riot and it happened in Chow Kit (Kuala Lumpur) on 18 October 1987. The documentary tries to interview and to express people's opinion about this racial riot in Chow Kit on 1987.

What happened on 18 Oct 1987 at Chow Kit?

In 18 Oct 1987, it was a Malaysia's political history one of the darkest days. There had some political persons and a few of newspaper office including Sin Chew Daily had been forced to close during the period of Operasi Lalang.

The night of 1987 October 18, a soldier, Prebet Adam ran amok with an M-16 in the area of Chow Kit, Kuala Lumpur. He caused the situation in the tense and rumours of the racial riot. Even though Prebet Adam made situation in the tense and rumours of the racial riot, but it lets Tun Mahathir to regain the initiative in Malaysia.

The Big Durian Documentary

In the film, Amir Muhammad interviewed some of the artists and made them like a civilians instead of an artist such as a Malay woman. When they were interviewing her in the park with any questions and her answer was just “I don’t know, don’t ask me anything”. Although her response liked a proper civilian, we realized that she was just a Malaysia artist when we recall back the film. The purpose that Amir Muhammad invited them to be a civilian was because some of the people maybe felt shy in front of the camera and maybe the director tried to cover some of the parts or answer were not allow appear on the screen. 

At the end, I hope that this kind of situation in the tense will not happen again in my loved country - Malaysia

Nostalgic Object in #tanahairku

In this exhibition, there was a nostalgic object was significant to me which was the primary school in Section 4 – A lifetime of friendship. I was very interested the design of classroom included the table, book, pencil, chair and feather duster. It was a good memory in my mind and let me to recall back the period of study in primary school. 

It made me recall back when I studied in primary school, there was my first time went to the school alone without any friends and parents accompanied even same school with my sister but we did not have any interaction in the school. So, I realised it was a time that I need to learn how to communicate and interact with others children.  I was trying to introduce myself to others children who sat surround me.

Finally, I had a friend and she lived next to me. We were always sharing our food such as bread, biscuit and so on. After the class, we did our homework together and shared our answer as well. Not only this, we played together in every moment when we free such as “Congkak” and I was always the loser in this game. Sometimes, we forgot to do the homework or forgot to bring the textbook, our teacher would use feature duster to whip our hand as a punishment. Therefore, it let me had an unforgettable memory in my life.

Congkak

We were still maintained our friendship until now, 2016. We were very treasure it because it was a friendship that more than 10 years from 2002 to 2016. So, I think the classroom design and the “Congkak” were good nostalgic objects for me.

#tanahairku

Let’s go together to visit the Galeri Petronas – Tanahairku!

What was the Galeri Petronas – Tanahairku about?

Galeri Petronas was a place to keep Malaysia’s culture and the nostalgic collection. Besides that, they were also created a collection of truly Malaysian’s stories and mop up the nation to hear the stories of the people and rediscover our love for Malaysia.

Which section that I liked the most in the exhibition?

The section that I liked the most was Section 3. Section 3 was about “What’s life without love?” Whenever we were facing any sacrifices, resilience, perseverance and determination, love was always bringing us no matter family or companion together. There were 4 stories showed in this exhibition were The Plastic Bowl, 7 Sons & A Cow, Man Gyver and Tau Fu Fah.

Why was I loved it so much?

Love could help us to solve every challenged in our life.  Tau Fu Fah was one of the stories that I impressed in Section 3. The story was about a couple who met each other by a bowl of Tau Fu Fah at the Tau Fu Fah stall. They were always sticking together and enjoyed with each other every day. After that, they married and had their happy family.

Unfortunately, they lost the entire thing in a fire accident especially the Tau Fu Fah shop. They felt very collapse after the accident because they paid a lot of effort in this shop but they did not give up and decided to reopen the shop because of love. It showed that love was the one of emotion to bring us together when we faced some challenges, especially it would seem through the trial and tribulations as our progressed in our life.

How the section relates to the overall theme of the exhibition?

For my understanding, Tanahairku was trying to bring out Malaysia as one, no matter how many race and religion we had, the important point was Malaysian must  unite as one in our country. It was because all the themes in this exhibition were about history and relationship between different religion and race. As a Malaysian if we lived without any love, we would not unite as one in our country. Let’s us tried to imagine that if our life without love, whether it was different races or religion did not respect each other and Malaysia would not have today.

TIME CAPSULE PROJECT

I decided to place secondary school uniform to the time capsule. 

Why am I decided to place it? ??

It is because school uniform is the best item to represent our student life and culture when we study in school. School uniform is a kind of uniform to represent a student has a good behavior in others people’s perspective and means that the students respect their school. Not only this, it is also accompanying us growing up and passed the period that we are study hard to get a good result in that time. However, we are not only have the period that we are study hard. When we are wearing secondary uniform, we will do some crazy and an unexpected thing with our friends or classmates in our school especially our teachers who are not in the class. For example, truancy the class to the shopping mall, hanging out in the hallway and skip the class for the certain subject to the other friend’s class chitchat. Moreover, we have the same behavior is sleeping in the class at most of the time. 

Why are we sleeping in the class???

 Because we think that the subjects too bored, dislike the subject and the attitude of the teachers, so we decide to sleep in the class instead of listen the voice and learn. We have a super power especially when the class end because all of us who are sleeping will automatic wake up instead of someone wake us up because we know that is a rest time. Except sleeping in the classroom, we are also sneak under the drawer eating our snack while teachers teaching in front of the class.

What is the pattern of our secondary uniform???

Since I study in government secondary school, so the school uniform for the boys will be a white shirt with a tie and olive-green long trousers. Besides that, the uniform for the girls will be a white shirt with turquoise pinafore or baju kurung over long turquoise skirt.  

There is the reason I decided to place the secondary school uniform to the time capsule. Since our generation gradually tend to technology generation, even they remain the same pattern of school uniform with us but they will not do this kind of crazy thing in their school. In 2120, they will not have any interaction with others or they only know how to play and study with the technology device instead of face to face learning and interaction. Therefore, I think that secondary school uniform is a great memory for our generation.