camne filem malaysia nak maju...

recently i had the chance to watch afdlin shauki's latest movie, sumo lah. at first, i thought it was just another comedy. i was so wrong. unlike his previous movies, sumolah has a more serious tone to it. while it wasn't exactly an exciting ride from start to finish, but at the end of the movie i was thoroughly impressed with it. honestly, this has to be the best malaysian movie i have ever seen. of course, it has its share of quirks here and there, like how honda-san totally doesn't sound japanese, and some lines were down right cheesy but hey, you gotta give the guy an A for effort because it certainly isn't an easy thing to pull of (my linguistic knowledge comes into play here :p) the movie won't make you laugh all the time, but it has a pretty good story and its character development and moral values are definitely some of the movie's strong points. the movie can also be seen as a satire of sorts as afdlin sublimely put a few 'wake-up calls' to the malaysian society if you were listening attentively. like i said before, its a great movie.

so, a malaysian movie this good has got to score a major success at the box office don't you think? unfortunately this is not the case. as a matter of fact, gsc requested that the movie be removed from its theatres after its 4th day of screening. talk about a major flop. why, i ask, is something like this happening? i find this terribly disturbing as a movie such as this was given the cold shoulder while movies with completely no substance like cicak man enjoyed major success. my answer, is the audience. i guess a lot of people are frustrated that sumolah isn't another ridicilously funny movie that they expected it to be. maybe its because of the stigma that malaysian movies need to have silly jokes, so much so that silly humour is permanently marked as a necessary criteria to make a movie 'good'. the way i see it, this is the scenario of the malaysian film industry now. a friend of mine said to me that generally, malaysians only like to watch movies that will allow them to enjoy it without having to think about anything. sure, its possible to see it that way, but then, why are films that are so mind bending like the matrix and lord of the rings trilogy so successful? are we suggesting that malaysian movies hasn't the right to even try breaking out of the mould that is silly humour? you tell me... (sumbody, 20xx)

movie-making is a business. as with any business, supplies come depending on the users' demand. therefore, i won't blame movie makers for making those movies that fall under the 'silly humour' category, because they know that those movies will get the best reception from the public. i'm sure even afdlin would stay away from making a movie along the lines of sumolah again given how miserably his film did this time. the problem is, if this situation continues, then the malaysian film industry will never reach international acclaims the way our neighbouring countries have been enjoying years ago. and here we say malaysia boleh this and that, yeah right.