THE CICAK.com

Storytellers shed light on the real Malaysia

By KEITH LEONG

I had the pleasure of attending a charity screening of Sepet at the Midvalley Megamall GSC on the 3rd of January in aid of Mercy Malaysia. Having missed its original release due to geographical reasons, I jumped at the chance when I heard that there would be an opportunity to catch it in cinema.

So there I was, with some friends, Chinese, Malay, Indian and even a visiting Greek and Brit, watching Sepet for the first time and coming face-to-face with the director. Yasmin Ahmad is a formidable woman; she calls her group of supporters the Storytellers Club, which I think is a very meaningful name.

I found Sepet to be a charming piece of work. It will undoubtedly go down in history as a seminal work in the new wave of independent filmmaking that is now emanating from our shores. Having recently gotten involved in the fringes of the making of another movie, S’kali, that goes into production this week, I see the former movie as both an inspiration and a challenge for other aspiring cinematic artists to at least equal, if not surpass.

The only sour spot in an otherwise enjoyable evening of entertainment was the frequent censorship cuts in the movie. These disrupted the narrative flow of Sepet and, as we know, nearly scuttled Yasmin’s plans to show it locally. I’m not going to discuss the merits of Malaysia’s censorship regime. Let it suffice for me to echo one of my university lecturers when talking about the subject: censorship is always context-bound, in that different generations will censor different things for different reasons and that it is really not what you say that will cause you to get censored, but what right you have to say it.

However, I personally believe that it was Yasmin Ahmad’s bold challenge to the stereotypes and hegemonic discourses on “race” and “racial identity” (if such things exist in the first place) that caused our rather insular Film Censorship Board to demand the cuts that it did. For Sepet is a culturally promiscuous film in the most delightful and respectful sense I can muster. Everything about it, from its plot, characters down to its soundtrack explodes the myth that the different ethnic groups in Malaysia are in any way mono-cultural and reveals the polyglot nature of its people. One must hope that more filmmakers will be able to produce bold and innovative works like Sepet in the near future.

Which brings me to my point: movies like Sepet need to be made because they shed light on how truly varied Malaysian society is. This is not simply a matter of demographics. We need to show the world and ourselves that, for better or worse, Malaysians are also diverse in terms of their hopes and dreams, their voices and opinions, but through all of this disparateness we still manage to find common ground on certain things. Sepet, timely as it is, only scratches the surface of the rich reservoir of human narrative that is Malaysia.

Malaysians have so many stories to tell. There’s so much more to us than what gets into our painfully obfuscated history textbooks. Go to the Malaysian or Local Interest section of any big bookstore and you’ll find the shelves full of memoirs and autobiographies of famous and not-so-famous rakyat. Each volume tells of the Malaysia that was, that is and perhaps the one that is to come. Each tale helps us know their writers and ourselves. They show us how and what it’s like to be Malaysian. But not everyone has the ability to articulate their thoughts or feelings.

That is where artists, be they writers or actors or directors come in. They have a duty to shed light on the often marginalised counter or sub-cultural groups in their society. Great works of art in truth are not only artistically sound and commercially viable but also empowering. We must be the voice of the voiceless, the eyes of the blind, the ears of the deaf and the courage of the weak. You get the picture.

There is a need for us to tell our side of the story and listen to others as well, even though they may be radically different and frightening to us. Because unless we learn to honestly understand each other rather than falling back on old stereotypes, Malaysia can never be a nation. That is why I particularly like the fact that Yasmin named her group The Storytellers Club. So let us speak. Let us listen.

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KEITH LEONG is a contributing writer for theCICAK.

He was born in Melaka, grew up in Damansara Jaya and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New South Wales, Sydney. He enjoys baroque music, grand epic movies and long walks. He still lives and works in Damansara Jaya.