I don't want to do a review on it, rather I just want to gush about it like how I did when I called YJ right after the show, squealing, "You have to watch it! Ho Yu Hang's back is featured in it!" and how I told Wiun, "After the movie I just wanted to hug the person beside me and say, 'I'm a Malaysian too!'" or how I hopped around the kitchen while Wiun and YKent were preparing sandwiches and wouldn't stop distracting them with sporadic ejaculations of "It was great! You should watch it! It was so Malaysian! There are worse ways you can waste RM10 you know! Who wants to watch Sepet? Oi why so long one I haven't eaten since breakfast!"
Don't let me overrate it for you. I know sometimes it's just irritating when someone says it's so incredibly nice and you walk out of the cinema feeling cheated. These things are subjective and different people look for different things in a movie.
Enough with the subtle disclaiming!
The storyline was simple - that's what puppy love is all about. Carefree and slightly wistful when it ends. But the parts I really liked in the movie was actually the scenes secondary to the storyline, the bits and pieces that followed the development of Orked and Mukhsin's budding love. Orked's irreverent parents. Good-natured gossip from Kak Yam. The blackboard in Orked's room. Orked's defiant spunk and English accent. "Pencemar budaya". So many so many little things inside that make you chuckle, or slightly thoughtful, or go "Hey, that's Malaysia!"
There are so many media products out there, from the U.S., from the U.K., from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc. Watching them gives me a slightly detached feeling, kinda like being an onlooker or an outsider. It's like watching through a glass into worlds where Devils wear Prada, or construction workers climb up bamboo sticks, or where all girls look the same and act stupid. Even some shows in Malaysia. I don't identify with that dunno-from-where accent. I don't get the slapstick humour (which made me lose all interest in local productions). And I definitely don't get that lobster suit you're calling a lizard.
But Mukhsin. I felt at home. I felt proud of it being shown in Berlin and winning. I felt proud of the community and family ties and multiple languages we have. I felt proud of identifying with all the symbols within that hint of Malaysia. Our culture. *beams*
OKlah maybe I haven't watched too many local productions to say only Mukhsin is Malaysian. It isn't. But this certainly restores my faith in local movies and please please please Yasmin Ahmad Tan Chui Mui Ho Yu Hang Amir Muhammad and co., make more movies and I promise I'll see them all! (And make all my friends go too!)
Other random jots:
- The scene I loved the most was the dance scene in Orked's livingroom. The warmth penetrated my soul and my eyes welled up for reasons I don't know. It was comical, yet slightly sad. Maybe it was sad because such moments are so precious and once they are over, they are forever gone.
- Tiny little gripes: a couple of scenes involving Chinese were a little fake. Didn't see much of Indians within.
- Yasmin Ahmad's blog can be accessed here.
- Ho Yu Hang is a local director who directed Rain Dogs, a movie which YJ loved.
