Director U-Wei Haji Saari (Authorship)

Synopsis

The movie “Kaki Bakar” is about a Javanese named Kakang who live in Malaysia with his family. Kakang is the father of the family and also known as the master of the family, where he always makes decisions, teaches his children about moral and beliefs. While his son Kasuma, always disciplined by his father. In the society, Kakang always being accused for crime, and cast out from the villages. Kakang likes to burn down the properties of the people he hated, while in the end his son Kasuma has tried to stop him but in the end, Kakang was dead shot by one of the village after getting caught burning the estate house.

“Jogho” is about Mamat a native of Kelantan, Malaysia, but he had left Malaysia many years earlier to join his brother Lazim in South Thailand in order to continue making his living as a trainer of fighting bulls (a Jogho). Mamat and Lazim are the leaders in a small village that depends mostly on the money won from gambling in bullfights for its sustenance. The story begins when Lazim is killed by Isa at the bullfighting arena. By tradition, this leaves Mamat and the young men the responsibility of taking revenge and thus preserving the honor of the village. Mamat visits Kelantan and arranges for his friend Jaafar to find and kill the perpetrators. Returning home, Mamat is gored by his new bull and is bedridden for several days. At the same time Lazim's two sons and a friend have gone into the town and managed to kill Isa's son Hamdan and his assistant Dollah Munduk. After the killing, the young men hide and Mamat is arrested by the Thai police, leaving the women alone to manage not only the village affairs but also to care for the bull. From the jail, Mamat pleads with his wife to pay the bail so that he will be able to fight the new bull. He is at last freed on the morning of the bullfight. At the bullfighting arena, Isa comes to avenge the death of his son. Isa shoots Mamat but miraculously misses his first shot and the second shot only manages to wound Mamat in the shoulder. Mamat wrestles the gun from Isa and knocks him to the ground. Now Mamat has the chance to kill Isa and avenge the death of Lazim, but Mamat refuses as he has become tired of Malays killing Malays. He lowers the pistol. But Lazim's son Sani grabs the gun and shoots Isa instead. The police come and Mamat surrenders himself to them, taking the responsibility for the murder. Although Mamat is taken away by the Thai police, the cycle of violence within the Malay community continues. (http://jiwang.org/malay-movies/34907-jogho-dvdrip-rmvb.html)

Review

The director for the both movie is director U-Wei Haji Saari. Since both of the movies are directed by the same director, therefore there are a lot of similarities among these two films. For instance, both of the movies have the same theme which is the male dominant, in both of the movies, the male characters are portrayed male dominating family, women, and masculine. In the movie “Kaki Bakar”, the children of Kakang is afraid of against the will of Kakang, especially his wife and daughters, as women has no power or rights in the family. Other  than that, all the villages leader are all male, while women are the one who stay at home and take care of the family. In the movie “Johgo”, women are not allowed to enter the bull fighting arena.

Besides that, director U-Wei Haji Saari also emphasized the importance of the family, while everyone must always be on the side of the family, no matter what happen. For example, in “Kaki Bakar”, when Kakang was cast out from the village, the whole family have to move together with him. In the end, though Kakang had committed crime and being killed by one of the villagers, Kasuma is still proud of his father as he mentioned the good deeds his father did while running in the forest.

Other than that, director U-Wei Haji Saari likes to discuss the Malays society as a negative. He discusses Malays society as weak, waiting got subsidies and forgetting who they are which include social inequalities and ethnic struggle.

The styles of director U-Wei Haji Saari are he likes to use low key lighting, slow dolly tracking shots, panning and tilting camera in a shot. The director also likes to use traditional Malay music as the soundtrack and create the atmosphere, and of course he likes to use old villages as the movie setting too.


References 

http://jiwang.org/malay-movies/34907-jogho-dvdrip-rmvb.html

Abang by Rahim Razali

Synopsis

The movie “Abang” emphasize on a male character Fuad Din who is the eldest brother in the family.  He is away from his family about 10 years without any reason. However after 10 years, he suddenly decided to come back to his family. This was shocking news towards his family members, which most of them has faced conflict. Both of his brothers dislike Fuad Din return, because they thought the act of Faud Din is rather irresponsible. He tried to make the life as normal as he possibly know how and keep his secret intact. In the end of the story, the family members finally found out the reason of Faud Din leaving the family.

Review

The director of the movie Rahim Razali focuses on the Malay, while he always like to ask the question of what it means to be Malay and yet modern. Therefore in this movie, it has emphasized the effect of hybrid Malaysian, which this film do not portrays the Malay culture or definition that people expect. For example, the activities that done by the Malays, the Malays’ clothing, the languages spoken by the Malays.

Hybrids are not lost just that they do not really worry of who they are, which doesn’t involve identity crisis. In Malay cinema, we see hybridity in the form of racial or ethnic hybrids, language hybrids, cultural hybrids and gender hybrids.

In this film it has involves language hybridity, where Fuad Din has combined some English language in his Malay conversation after coming back from London. Other than Fuad Din, the rest of his siblings have spoken Malay mixed English Language.

Other than that, the movie has involved cultural hybridity too. Where during Fuad Din has returned to his homeland, his family member has organized a welcoming home party for him, which is from the western culture. The drinks that they drink are not Malaysian drink but the cocktails from the westerns. In the other scene, Fuad Din’s father smoking cigarettes in the garden, which this is one of the western act too. There is one more scene, where it shows the little boy wearing karate suits after learning his karate lesson, which this is a cultural imprealism from the Japanese culture. The dressings of the cast are not wearing Malays’ traditional clothing but the western clothing like jeans, suits and so on. In this movie, it shows some casts play western instruments too, like violin and piano.

The racial hybridity has implant in the film too, where Faud Din has already adapt to the western practices after living in London for ten years.

Lastly gender hybridity has been used in the film too, where Faud Din’s sister has more interest on the boys’ activities like racing than the girls activities.

There are certain things that I dislike about this film, which are the casts portraying a bad habits towards the audiences, like smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol and drunk. Other than that, it also portrays the main cast has forget the root of his nation.

In the other hand, the things that I like about this film is the main cast Fuad Din, as he is a good and caring brother that protects his siblings and family. As the movie shows he protects his sister from the boys that forces her to smoke. 

Selubung

Synopsis 
Mastura is a Malaysian who studied in Perth, who just returns from her studies and joined the voluntary work ‘Rescaid’.  ‘Rescaid’ is trying to bring a group of Palestinian children to Malaysia. Mastura is a woman who is progressive, independent, strong minded, and articulate, speak a mixture of English and Malay, and well educated, also portrayed as the second portrayal of femininity.  Therefore Mastura is attracted by Kamal, Head of Research Department, who is also a married man. Mastura was disappointed with Kamal when she found out he is a married man, until Kamal divorced with his wife, and they get back together. During her studies in Australia, she has a group of good friends, which include EJ, who has married her religion leader Brother Musa. Unfortunately, the relationship among EJ and her married family doesn’t goes well, due to jealousy Brother Musa’s first wife has gone insane and killed EJ’s baby. After that incident, EJ has moved back to Malaysia, and with Mastura’s help, she manage to join the ‘Rascaid’ as well. Another of her good friend Halim has died in the war, during his missionaries. Halim was the one who encourage Mastura joined ‘Rascaid’. One day, an uncertainty happen in the head quarter office, a bomb was placed in the elevator of the office block while Mastura is standing outside the elevator, after the bomb exploded, Mastura has went into coma, until one day miracle happen and she is awake.  

What do you like about the film?

In this film, I admire the talent of Deanna Yusof, her acting brought up the personality of the character. She managed to bring out the message of the movie, and portrays the characters of second portrayal of femininity. Other than her acting, at the same time her languages are fluent too.

What do you dislike about the film?

I dislike the editing of the film; some of the transitions are too sudden, especially between the flashback scene and present scenes, it makes the audience confuse about the storyline. Other than that, the lighting for the film is too dark and it does not show hope. Some of the shots in the film have poor headroom. The Script writers are trying to put too many messages in the film, which somehow neglect some of the important scenes and storyline and causes the audiences confuse.

Which part of the film you dislike?

I dislike the part when during the explosion scene, Kamal showed suspicious act instead of urgent and rushing act while going up the stairs knowing the girl he loved is injured. Other than that, during the scene when butterflies are in the patient room is too fake. During the scene where someone is fixing a speaker in the critical patient room and speaking so loud doesn’t show logic at all. 

Highlight particular scenes from the film as references

During the climax of the film, when the bomb exploded and Mastuka was injured, M.Nasir needs to improve his acting skills, by showing more urgent and concern than just suspensions.

Misc En Scene

The locations of the movie is good, especially the war scene, it manages to let the audience believe that they are in the war location. But the props is rather bad, the newspaper written ‘pejabat Rascaid dikhianati’ but story didn’t show who betrayed Rescaid and no reason to bomb a charity organization.

Misc En Shot

The lighting for the movie is too dark. Some shots have poor headroom. There are many unnecessary or sudden shots. The flashback transition during Mastuka found the dead baby does not smooth and it confused the audience. During 59.22s transition is weird with the background music continues from BGM to radio sound.