Yasmin Ahmad: Confronting prejudice head-on

Friday, September 29, 2006
Hera Diani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Clad in a white, embroidered kebaya (blouse) and colorful batik cloth, noted Malaysian filmmaker Yasmin Ahmad moved animatedly as she sang a couple of lines from Jablai, the hit song that appears in the current Indonesian film Mendadak Dangdut
(Suddenly Dangdut) by director Rudy Soedjarwo.

The lyric says Pergi tamasya ke Binaria/Pulang-pulang ku berbadan dua (Going to

Binaria for some fun/And leaving there pregnant).

"I passed Binaria this morning, and there was this public toilet. I thought, this is probably the place where they (people in the song) did it," said the outgoing lady, laughing. "The song is so funny. Ooh, I'd love to see the movie."

Yasmin, 48, has a strong affection for Indonesian films, which she said were much more progressive compared with those in Malaysia; this fondness was on constant display as she talked one Friday afternoon at the lounge of Mercure hotel, Ancol, North Jakarta.

She said she wanted to make a film here, for the country has a richer culture and its history is so much longer.

"I've told my friend here, you don't have to pay me. Just pay for my hotel and food, and give me a pack of cigarettes a day. I just want to make a film here. You don't even need to put my name on it," she said, in between puffs on her Camel cigarette.
As flattering as it sounded, it could be just another case of "the grass is greener on the neighbor's side", for contemporary Indonesian cinema contemporary films are in such a sorry state, with products that undermine viewers' intelligence.

Yasmin's work, on the other hand, is a poetic series that strikes the chords of humanity with great sensibility, and, at the same time, makes great use of visual technique to tell a story -- but not just for the sake of producing pretty, but ultimately empty, pictures.

Her first feature film, Sepet (Slit Eye, 2004), although somewhat slow, is an innocent and moving portrayal of an interracial relationship between two teenagers in Malaysia, one Chinese and one Malay.

It won an award for Best Asian Film at the 18th Tokyo Film Festival in 2005, as well as Le Grand Prix du Jury at the 2005 prix Creteil International Women's Film Festival in France.

Her sophomore effort, Gubra (2006) -- a colloquial Malay word for "anxiety" -- showed more technical prowess, and it weaves delicately two disparate stories on love, betrayal and prejudice.

Before Mukhsin was screened later that night, Yasmin warned: "Thank God the hotel ballroom's full of mosquitoes; they will keep you from falling asleep. The pace is even slower than Sepet and the story is the simplest of all."

Mukhsin turned out to be the most poetic of all, with just perfect pace and rhythm, about a heartwarming tale of first love between a preteen boy and girl set in a Malaysian kampong.

Written and directed by Yasmin, all three films orbited around the same character, Orked, played by Yasmin's muse, young Malaysian actress Syarifah Amani, and Orked's family -- a tribute to both legendary Japanese filmmaker Yoshijiro Ozu and Yasmin's loving and "crazy" parents ("they're in their 70s but still shower together and have sex, and chase one other around," she said.)

Her parents were one of the reasons Yasmin switched to filmmaking ("I want to tell them I love them"). Yasmin was already a household name in the Malaysian advertising scene when she forayed into film and made Rabun (2002), a feature for television based on real life when her father had eyesight problems.

She still works as executive creative director for Leo Burnett advertising agency (the screening of Mukhsin was part of the Citra Pariwara ad festival here), because, she said, one couldn't make money from filmmaking in Malaysia.

"The good thing about the advertising scene in Malaysia is that it's not bitchy. It's a small community that is mutually supportive," she said. Her expression turned dark for a second, adding, "The film scene, however, is very bitchy. It's a pathetic industry."

Sepet and Gubra might have been lauded as best films at the Malaysian Film Festival but condemnation was ripe back home.

She was labeled a corruptor of culture and religion for mixing Malaysian language and culture with others (English, Chinese, Indian) and her films are accused of having "pornographic elements".

Malaya University even held a seminar titled "Does Sepet Deserve to Win Best Film at the Malaysian Film Festival 2005?", which one Malay daily described as "narrow" and "as if full of hatred".
To an outsider, the accusations were baffling because the most pornographic elements in the films showed couples hugging, and scenes where women wore strapless sarongs at home.

Gubra is emotionally powerful as it showed a peaceful facade of Islam, including a story of a nonjudgmental cleric and his wife and their attitude toward their prostitute neighbors.

"They asked why the cleric and his wife were so nice to the prostitutes when they should have battled immorality," she said. "They were also angry because of a scene where the cleric patted a dog."

She said she deliberately infused Chinese and Indian language and culture because Chinese- and Indian-Malaysians are treated like second-class citizen.

"Because nobody has ever said it in a film and a novel that to be Indian and Chinese in Malaysia is sometimes like being in love with someone who doesn't love you back: They have no country; they don't feel they belong to China and India. They love Malaysia," said Yasmin, who is married to a Chinese-Malaysian.

The older generation of filmmakers, meanwhile, was so threatened by Yasmin and younger filmmakers that they badmouthed her to government officials and even paid reporters to write bad things about her.

The mainstream filmmakers, as Yasmin called them, even went as far as to tell moviegoers who were about to see Yasmin's films that tickets were sold out when in fact the theater was still half-full.

"They hate me: Ho Yuhang, Amir Muhammad and other new wave filmmakers. We don't hate them. Yes, we're embarrassed about their films but we don't hate them.

"If they make money from their films, good for them: Live and let live. But they're not the same. They got even more upset if our films were featured at international film festivals," she said, adding a swear word.

"The real reason is money -- they're afraid we will bite into their income."
She said all the condemnation hurt, but she would simply move on and make films. Her upcoming project is a film about a dark moment in Malaysia's history when Chinese and Malays killed each other back in the 1960s.

Another project she has pursued is about working-class women in rural areas in Indonesia.

One thing's for sure: Through her films, she wants to show people what's possible.
"It seems there's a trend of anger and hatred in films and in the world, to the point that models on catwalks don't smile anymore. To be arrogant and dismissive, to rip a person apart -- that's cool?

"This guy takes a knife and sticks it in his gut -- that's so cool. I'm thinking, 'what's so cool about it?' I'd like to persuade people that compassion is cooler."

Labels: Film, profile

Posted by hera at Friday, September 29, 2006 8:21 PM | Permalinks