Kaki Bakar is a film which proud of his Javanese heritage, Kakang is trying to bring up his children in Malaysia and instill in them his own traditional values and beliefs. Seeing clearly the social inequalities that allow him to be exploited his defiance results in profound consequences for his youngest son, a boy who shares his father's uncompromising integrity. The Arsonist involves the struggles of an undocumented immigrant family and a boy's coming-of-age. The son Kesuma must forge his own identity against the intimidating presence of his father Kakang, a man proud of his Javanese heritage and well aware of the social inequalities that allow his exploitation. Kakang counteracts by torching the property of those who slight him, leaving Kesuma simultaneously proud, fearful and ashamed. A clash of wills is all but inevitable. The film climaxes in a poignant conflagration, literal and metaphorical.
Meanwhile, Jogho is a film which set in the bull-fighting Patani Malay community of Southern Thailand. An ungracious loser in the arena kills his rival, whose brother Mamat (Khalid Salleh) then vows to get even. His wife Minah (Normah Damanhuri) fails to stop this cycle of vengeance, which will also affect the younger generation. Mamat is 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).
Filming style used by U-Wei is seen be more sophisticated from his movie at 1995 until the next movie at 1997. In this 2 film we can see a U-Wei’s film themselves that are the real achievement. These 2 films is about rural tales that grapple with sex, family, power and belief. The theme for both films is mainly focus on the identity hold by the characters in the film. From both movies, we can see that hyper masculine male in rural area. The males in both film always take care of the family and earning money for the family. U-Wei actually inserts the representation of male and female in the film. Masculinity can also be seen in Kaki Bakar where Kakang always scream in front of his family members in order to dictate their moves, their roles. In Jogho, the bull fighting activity is a masculine activity where woman are not allowed to step in to the fighting area.
Mise-en-scene plays a role in interpreting U-Wei’s film. In both films we can see that U-Wei is used to slow dolly tracking shot. Most of the shots are tracking shots whereby the movement of camera only applies left to right or right to left. The use of diegetic sound with the camera movement is what the director trying to do in order drag audience to the source of the sound and this also highlighted the event that seen after the end of he camera movement is important throughout the films. U-Wei shows us what we should notice by putting more techniques inside the film. Family and unconditional love also have been inserted by U-Wei inside both films.
Besides, there is similarity between two films in terms of justice power. U-Wei is transcends the script by imposing his film style and vision, blending subjective and personalized filmmaking practices across his films. It had become a symbolic icon of all his film.
Reference
