BOOKED

“The film’s not perfect; in fact, it’s one of Amir’s less polished works” - Review of Lelaki Komunis Terakhir by Jeremy Mahadevan. In NST 18 May 06.


I’m a very lazy man and I don’t feel it’s worth it to spend time chewing over things that don’t get me quite worked up (which unhapilly happens to be most things really). But I kinda love Amir’s old writings in his old ‘perforated sheet’ column in old NST literary pages in the good old days of early nineties, so I guess I can say that I’m kinda quite worked up when there’s anything to do with Amir’s creative outputs.

So when he made his first film ‘Lips to Lips’ I went to see it with great anticipation. Although there were a few nice ‘amiresque’ moments –my wife’s one memorable scene was about ‘that shoes smelling scene’ as she put it - on the whole the film was rather amateurish to my eyes and quite a dissapointment but okay, this is his first so; forgivable. But who am I to pronounce judgement when this film got invitations to be screened all over the globe.

Then there was his ‘Six shorts’. I’m too daft to understand this kind of ‘artistic’ nonsense so I can’t make any real judgement other than to say that it’s a complete crap. But who am I to say since this crap did win at least one award from Singapore Film Festival . And then he came up with ‘The big durian’ concerning some thorny issues in Malaysia in the mid eighties. Another crap to my aesthetic taste . The only memorable scene to me was when, was it Salleh ben Joned(?) ranting about all kinds of things and saying that HARAKAH is crap. Now this got me very worked up because I kinda support Harakah which is of course the organ of PAS the islamic party of Malaysia which I absolutely adore ( honestly). And who am I to say that this film is forgetabble as it was the first time that a film from Malaysia got selected to be screened in the Sundance film festival and even shortlisted for a minor competition in asian documentary section and again travelled all over the world on film festival circuits.I did not hear if it ever won anything though.

After three duds I thought well I’ll take a rest and did not watch his next output which I can’t even recall what it was about now. And then BOOM! ‘Lelaki Komunis Terakhir’ brouhaha.

To tell the truth I think Amir should kiss the feet of those that banned this latest ‘creative’ output of his. This is godsend. Such publicity and notoriety! You are up there old cock! The only way now is up old cock! Judging from the rather polite reviews and that little statement (above) by probably his friend who reviewed the film in today’s NST (which in itself is a very strange thing for the govt to allow: reviewing film that is banned?? How monty pythonesque !) I don’t think it’s an earth shattering film. It’s not even a film strictly speaking of course. Just a whimsical documentary which isn’t exactly BBC horizon or one of those illuminating channel 4 documentaries. “One of Amir’s lesser polished work?” Crap by other name to me . My guess is, if it were to screen in the cinemas it might sink without a trace after a couple of days but my guess can be wrong too as I’ve been wrong on many things before .

I think Amir is inwardly aware that he has checkmated the silly government of Malaysia and is right now tittering in the dark somewhere and gloating over the stupidity of the Malaysian government decision which don’t do anybody any good at all. I think Amir is fully aware that he is on top of things now, like the great chess grandmaster Kasparov who recklessly sacrificed a pawn to gain an advantage over his opponent.

Now that you are really somebody to be noticed I hope you’ll finally come up with the REAL film that I think you’re capable of. I’ve always dreamed of Malaysia producing our very own Coen Brothers and may be you’re the one . I hope to get really worked up with your next film.