Abang- Rahim Razali(1981)

The oldest son and heir apparent to a wealthy Kuala Lumpur family returns home after his sudden departure to London a decade ago. His family struggle with their emotions about his return while he tries to make life as normal as he possibly know how and keep his secret intact. The entry of Rahim Razali with Abang (Big Brother, 1981), signalled a change and for the first time, Malay films were more realistic in story and treatment, eschewing the superficiality and melodrama of the past. Rahim Razali echoed the same theme in Abang, relating it to Malays who had succeeded in business but then began to succumb to greed.
Overall I quite like this movie. The main character Abang Fuad was left his family, business to London for 10 years. After 10 years, he came back to his family. His family was happy yet angry. His brother was afraid of the reason why he suddenly back to his country. Mona, his sister-in-law felt restless and uncomfortable too. Abang Fuad’s brother Faizal felt surprised and worried. He worried that if Abang Fuad has changed, fear that Abang Fuad returns solely to condemn them. A thousand and one fears from Faizal. However, the family was excited when saw Abang Fuad at home.
I would like to make analysis about it by focusing on the concept of Hybrid Malaysians. We could able to see hybridity in the form of racial hybrids, language hybrids, cultural hybrids and gender hybrids. Hybridity is an association of ideas, concepts and themes that all at once reinforce and contradict each other. Hybridity can take the form of experiences or influences dependent hybrids. From the movie, we can see that it is mixture within culture, language and racial. Abang Fuad stayed at London for 10 years, he adapted the culture and language there. When he comes back we can see as righteous Malay. The family of Abang Fuad are highlighted that own business and educated. Their house is designed within western and eastern. Beside that’s, their lifestyle is also mix with western culture. When Abang Fuad was back, they had a party to welcome Abang Fuad’s returns. It is different with the Malay traditional style. They were dancing and drink alcoholic drinks in the party. Muslims are not supposed to drink alcoholic drinks. Therefore, throughout the movie we see them indulged in westernized lifestyle. Their costumes are also different with the traditional Malay clothes. We can see Dila dancing in the beginning of film with modern clothing. Culture hybridity is the influence of other cultures or western cultures, nevertheless they’re still Malays. From movie, the scene where Farid was drunk and Fuad comes in later in the night, they kinda have a fight, Fuad told him u have actually forgotten your roots, he said Farid has forgotten what his real culture and roots were. The characteristic of Farid actually it was a lifestyle and so common to him to drink and party. Although Farid is so called the rebellious son, there is still a hint of authentic culture in him, where he actually respects his parents. Abang Fuad actually portrays modern, educated, and success without losing cultural identity. Throughout the story, he proves that to be successful in life, one does not need to put down their cultural identity.
For the language hybrids, most of the language used is Malay language but English has been occasionally used in conversation. It’s clearly shows that the family is highly educated and modern. In their dialogue, they often used I instead of saya. For examples, the scene where Faisal say “a ghost from the past” during his conversation with his wife, Mona and the scene where Faisal answers “silly question” to his younger sister, Dila when she asks whether he miss Abang Fuad or not.
Racial Hybridity can find in the movie of “Abang”. In the scene of celebration party for Fuad’s return. There are different kind of people attend the party in terms of races, status and social class. In that scene, we can see Indian people, the employees and upper class people. Besides that, at the party, when Mona was clad in her baju kebaya, she was fanning herself using the Chinese fan. The fan is usually used in Chinese family culture.
Abang’ movie had been involving different kind of hybridity in bringing the story forward with more interesting and meaningful aspects. Although they are afraid of Abang Fuad’s return, but they still respect him as an elder in the family. Lastly, when Abang Fuad was dead, the family were sad and finally they know the reason of Abang Fuad left his country for 10 years.

Selubung - Suhaimi Baba (1992)

Synopsis

Selubung is a social drama about a group of young Malaysian students in Australia. They have to deal with culture shock, because of living in a Western culture, and with their idealism in connection with Palestinian terrorism. The plight of a young voluntary worker working for the Palestinian cause finds betrayal, love and hope through her journey. Mastura is a student in Perth, Australia failed to save EJ of religious fundamentalist groups. On her return to Malaysia, she engaged the charity body ‘Rescaid’ to bring a group of Palestinian children to Malaysia. Mastura fell in love with Kamal, Head of Research Department, but was disappointed because he had married. However, this relationship can be healed after Kamal divorced. Mastura managed to persuade EJ and Kamal joined the charity. Rescaid activities support the people of Malaysia but violently opposed by certain quarters that Mastura went into a coma.

Review

Selubung was a film directed by Suhaimi Baba and it is typical filmmaking in its focus on beautiful, young people especially young women. What I like about this film is the storyline of this film. The characters in this film find their betrayal, love and hope through their journey. Mastura is more westernism but EJ is more traditional women. There is a big contrast on their costumes. Mastura is a young and independent woman. She is progressive and strong minded. Her personality is different with EJ. EJ is a traditional woman. She choose to quit her study and married with Musa. She believes Musa will save her soul and bring her to the path of God. She quit her studies and married with Musa although there’s only a year left to finish. EJ has thinking that a disobedient wife is a wife who has a better education than her own husband, to be an obedient wife, she choose to leave her friends and married with Musa. EJ was the representative of first portrayal of femininity. According to Film Appreciation, Criticism and Interpretation lectures notes, the 1^st portrayal deals with cinematic representations of masculinity as a response to what it sees as a threat to ‘authentic masculinity’. 2^nd portrayal is the assertion of female sexuality without the use of libidinal desires. Mastura in this film represent the 2^nd portrayal of femininity. She is articulate and speaks a mixture of English and Malay. The friendship between Mastura and EJ is one of the reason I like this film. When EJ was decided quit studying and married to Musa, Mastura trying to persuade EJ. When EJ was lost her son, Mastura trying to help her and persuaded her to join Rescaid. Besides that, the love story about Kamal and Mastura the reason of I like the film too. When Mastura was in coma, Kamal always beside her and take care of her.

What I dislike in this film is the pace of editing in this film. For me, audiences are easy to get confused in this film. There have many jump scenes in this film. Sometimes there’s no continuity and the pacing in this film is confusing. Some of the scenes need to re-watch many times then only can understands the meaning. Audiences were hard to catch up what the characters acting, what’s going on the story. The flow of the story seems like very jump and confusing.

In this film, I like the part when Pintu trying to help Kamal to chasing back Mastura in office. The conversations between Pintu and Kamal in phone were funny. This part can reduce the tension of audiences. Pintu always play the role of funny and he success to make audiences laugh.

Mise-en-scene is thus part of a film’s narrative, but it can tell a larger story, indicating things about the events and characters that go beyond any words they utter. From the scene when Kamal in lorry and ask Pintu to drive to Mastura’s house, we can see that Mastura is in an embarrassing situation when Kamal on the lorry and use the loud speaker to ask Mastura to see him. Kamal was sit on the lorry and director has do some decorate on the lorry. Kamal is wearing in formal and smart way while Mastura was in casual wear. Costumes for characters in this scene are quite stylized. Because of this scene is at outdoor, lighter has created the composition and guides our attention. The source of lighting is from nature light. Besides that, the others scene to describe the mise-en-scene and mise-en-shot part is when Mastura went into lift. Locations are outside and inside the lift. Cinematographer try to shake the camera to bring out the tension feel in this scene. Camera movement is not stable. The cinematographer always use low angle to shoot the characters inside lift. When Mastura was injured, camera angle is more on low angle and shoot on people leg so that brings out the chaos condition. The lighting in this scene is soft and darker to create the composition and guide audience’s attention. Quality of the lighting is more to soft and dark. When Mastura was injured, her makeup was more to bloody so that the character looked injured in more serious. At last, when Mastura was waked up from coma, there are many butterflies in hospital. Those flash back link to the starting scene when Mastura’ dad told her that butterflies bring luck to her and Mastura was awake. The last scene, Mastura was stand on the top than others.