So I'm doing a paper on Amir Muhammad's The Last Communist for my Popular Cinema module and I've been trawling the web for the past two hours for whatever article/review/analysis/report that I can get my hands on. (God bless Malaysian filmmakers & their blogs!) Somewhere down the line I got sidetracked and ended up youtubing old-school Malaysian movies like Ringgit Kasorrga and Gemilang. Imagine my surprise when a spanking scene came on within the first 5 minutes of Ringgit Kasorrga. The movie came out in 1995 and somehow I highly doubted that my family would allow my 9-year-old self (as liberal as they are) to watch a movie with spanking scenes in them. (The spanking scene wasn't exactly pornographic or whatever but please keep in mind that this was 1995 and most importantly, it's MALAYSIA.)

But I digress.

I was also quite taken aback to learn that no Malaysian documentary has ever been screened in Malaysian theatres before. In fact, only 3 foreign docus - March of the Penguins, Fahrenheit 9/11, and another one that I can't remember, have been screened in the theatres. Amir Muhammad was pleasantly surprised to learn that The Last Communist was passed with no cuts by the censorship board, only to have it banned 10 days before its first screening. The screening would have taken place in only 3 theatres - they were the only ones that supported the digital format - so the Home Affairs Minister's claims that the film would have caused riots and all that jazz were quite frankly, bullshit. And to think, it would have been Malaysia's first documentary to be screened in theatres, and it ended up being Malaysia's first ever locally-made banned film. The irony here is that even though the movie is rather Malaysia-centric, it was extremely well-received in other parts of the world such as Berlin, Seattle and Spain.

Anyway, I was reading an interview of him in Criticine and they were talking about The Big Durian (which i loved) -

Interviewer: It is a very KL movie. Kuala Lumpur is often just a backdrop in mainstream Malaysian movies. There is always the Petronas Towers, the KL Tower – two structures you don’t appear to be very thrilled with.
AmirMuhammad: Because they are Mahathir’s biggest erections.

WIN! And because of this, I'm going to find Malaysian Gods. Synopsis from his website:

In September 1998, Anwar Ibrahim was sacked as Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia. His expulsion and subsequent trial for corruption and sodomy triggered a wave of street protests by his supporters and those who were against the authoritarian rule of the government. The label for this movement and era was 'reformasi' (reformation). Malaysian Gods takes a look at several pivotal protests that took place in the year following his sacking. It eschews archive footage in favor of interviews with people who are living, working in or visiting the actual locations of the demonstrations, about a decade later. All the interviews are done in Tamil, the main language of the smallest of the three major ethnic groups. What do people now have to say about their lives, hopes and dreams? And have the socio-political markers of Malaysian society changed all that much since then?

Unfortunately, he's currently on a filmmaking hiatus so it'll be awhile before we get to see any new material from him.  :(

And now, I have to actually make notes for my paper. Aargh.

Finished all 4 eps of Emma last night. In some ways the series>the movie but based on Mr. Knightley alone, to me the most essential ingredient of any adaptation, the movie>the series.

But because I'm running out of time and have to get ready for my FYP meeting I'll leave you with this:

Mrs. Elton: Married women are the best organizers. Leave it to me!
Mr. Knightley: No, there is but one married woman in the world who I could ever allow to invite what guests she pleased to Donwell.
Mrs. Elton: Mrs. Weston, I suppose?
Mr. Knightley. No. Mrs. Knightley. And until she is in being, I will manage matters myself.

BURN! And in the next scene he alludes to Emma being mistress of the house! Oh! And this last line,

Mr. Knightley: If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.

Mr. Knighley is snarky, funny, thoughtful and a gentleman. This is why I want one.

I would like to dedicate this post to Cory Monteith's absolutely hysterically manic performance during the It's My Life/Confessions Part II mashup in Glee. Somebody said that a high Finn is like Rachel on her normal day. But Rachel on her normal day is not nearly as entertaining as a high Finn. (To say that I'm obsessed with this mashup would be an understatement.)

so.

( ramblings about emma version 2009 )