THE CICAK.com

S’kali is watchable, but plot is under-nourished

By SAMIR HARITH

S’kali, local filmmaker Arivind Abraham’s debut effort, is a watchable effort which has the viewer following multiple parallel storylines.

Young aspiring filmmaker Ravin (Jayaram Nagaraj) goes through tough times trying to perfect his debut film script (this character coincidentally mirrors the life of 23-year-old director Abraham). In his spare time he hangs out at a nameless mamak with his four other friends.

We have Bahir (Zimy Rozan) a struggling independent musician; Tzao (Derek Ong), a straight-A student who can’t seem to get the scholarship he wants; Sze Huey (Davina Goh), a sweet young wannabe journalist who writes for an online publication (a special appearance by theCICAK); and Tehmina (Angeline Rose), the wild chick from a broken family who enters a downward spiral of alcoholism.

Let’s see if I can remember all the storylines:

First we have Ravin and his general inability to perfect his movie script…so he tries and tries and tries again. He gets his friends to review it, but it never is good enough, not until the end of the movie anyway (Their exact words: “It was rushed, Ravin…â€? Perhaps they were just being polite.)

Then we have Ravin managing a relationship with Sze Huey. Oooh! An interracial love affair! Need I say more?

Sze Huey is busy trying to change the world through her articles in theCICAK, while managing her “old-fashioned� parents at the same time.

Next we have Tzao, who is all angsty and bitter about not getting a scholarship due to the evil Malaysian education system. Throughout most of the movie, you see Tzao taking out his anger on Bahir, albeit in a very non-violent way, as befits a straight-A student.

We also have Bahir, the struggling musician trying to market his music. Jason Lo makes a cameo appearance as a music producer and entrepreneur, who tries to convince Bahir to turn himself into Mawi (Malaysia’s current favourite pop star and winner of Akademi Fantasia 3).

Of course, our proud indie musician isn’t keen on the idea. There are some good moments in the movie when he takes jabs at what he calls the “SMS artistes� out there these days.

We then have Tehmina (referred to by her friends as Tehm), who comes from a broken family and thus drinks herself silly. Tehm is, however, supported by Bahir, who then begins to develop feelings for her.

OK, now that that’s out of the way… scalpel please!

The first thing that came across to me while watching this movie was its grainy filmography.

But I must say that despite having grainy video quality, the film is quite well done. The camera angles are quite interesting. Abraham and his team manage to capture the mood of each scene quite well.

The sound, however, leaves much to be desired, being just as unclear as the video quality.

The movie makes good use of music to introduce each new scene, but there are some scenes where you feel just require some background tunes to properly reflect the mood.

The plot (or plots) of the movie feel a bit under-nourished. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Abraham is trying to cram five stories into 75 minutes. The movie tries to court controversy by throwing in an interracial relationship, but there isn’t enough flesh there to keep the viewer hooked. There is some semblance of flow between each storyline, but I kept feeling that the transitions between scenes were quite jumpy and not very smooth. It left me with a “what just happened…?� kind of sensation. It took me a while to figure how each scene related to each other.

The movie makes an effort to try to flesh out all five main characters equally, but it falls flat simply because there are too many characters and not enough time. In the end the characters come across as somewhat two-dimensional (whiny filmmaker, angsty scholar, emo musician, sobby journalist and drunken chick).

The dialogue is pretty creative and witty (especially taking into account Jason Lo’s rant about Mawi), with elements of day-to-day Malaysian conversation. At points, the movie tries to be funny with the dialogue, but it only managed to draw a few polite giggles from the audience.

Acting-wise it was pretty decent, with a few good performances. Kudos to Davina Goh for carrying the role of the idealistic theCICAK journalist so well!

However, fans of Yasmin Ahmad’s Sepet and Gubra who are hoping for a film in a similar vein may be disappointed (even though Ahmad herself makes an appearance in S’kali).

So if you like a simple story about a bunch of multiracial friends growing up and coming of age in KL, then S’kali is the movie for you.

(Plus if you are a big fan of theCICAK, our name comes out at least four or five times in this production. Sweet!)
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SAMIR HARITH is an editor for theCICAK.