In it, I have delved into local cinema history and have also included the history of the Malayan Film Unit (MFU) where the first feature film in Kuala Lumpur was made. I had known and worked with many industry pioneers and I remembered many of the conversations I had with them. I then proceeded to conduct formal interviews and so much of my material has been from primary sources. Other sources have been old newspapers dating back to 1897 as well as magazines and books. I also found quite a bit of information relating to the British policies on the film industry in British Malaya as also on the MFU in London at the Public Records Office, the Imperial War Museum and the British Film Institute. My researches and writings on early Malaysian cinema have appeared in international publications and have been presented at many conferences. Im happy that my work has become beneficial to many Masters and PhD students as well as scholars, writers and film festival curators locally and internationally who have interviewed or consulted me.
I look upon the filmmakers of today as those who are simply continuing the traditions of storytelling like the oral storytellers of old before the advent of cinema towards the end of the 19th century. This is why I have included aspects of classical Malay literature and the traditional performing arts to show the similarities in storytelling then and now in films. As the traditional storytellers were influenced and affected by the socio-political-cultural milieu of their times, so have the filmmakers of today. In the process (and rightly so), they have articulated notions of roots, tradition and identity in the face of modernity. Among the storytellers who were observant of the threats that modernity brought to tradition, custom and religion have been P. Ramlee, Hussein Haniff, M. Amin, Rahim Razali, Mansor Puteh, Anuar Nor Arai, U-Wei Hajisaari, Shuhaimi Baba, Wan Azli Wan Jusoh, Hatta Azad Khan, Khir Rahman and Dain Said. Though cinema caused the demise of most of these art forms, these filmmakers have helped to keep some of them alive for posterity via the cinema screen.
Much has been said and written by journalists, critics, academics and the layman about the sad state of storytelling in contemporary Malaysian films with their shoddily-written, substanceless stories and coarse characters mouthing inane dialogue. Lately, popular novels with the same superficial plots and two-dimensional characters have been making it to the screens. They are made by directors who should know better (and that includes some film academics who are also filmmakers). Compare this scenario to the well-made Chinese language films that do not at all demean the intelligence of their audience. These films are successful locally and have also managed to cross over into countries like Singapore, China and Taiwan where there is discerning viewership unlike that of the local Malay audience. This dire situation raises the question of whether the standards (and mentality) of the Malay audience has actually fallen when compared to that of the 1950s.
It is my hope that that this book will result in a reflection on this state of affairs especially when viewership for Malay films has fallen drastically this year. Among the questions that need to be raised is of how traditional literature and the stories found in the ancient performing arts were created by those who were unlettered but have withstood the test of time. We should also question why those who have had formal education in film today have not been able to produce works that are equal or better than that of the storytellers of old.
I believe that one way to address the situation is to have future film students undergo a course where they explore traditional storytelling methods (in literature and the performing arts) and explore how its practitioners not only told interesting stories but were also able to deliver a subtext. This should culminate in an examination of contemporary literature to explore the changing nature of protagonists and antagonists in the context of their times and relate it to film storytelling. There are many excellent books on classical literature and the traditional performing arts by academics such as Mohammad Taib Osman, Siti Hawa Salleh, Muhammad Haji Salleh, Ghulam Sarwar-Yusoff, Shaharuddin Maarof and Tan Sooi Beng. Through their writings and then my own findings and analysis, I have found that the cinematic apparatus was already in use by the ancient storytellers long before the arrival of cinema.
This book traces the involvement of the generation of storytellers who were involved in filmmaking in Singapore, their subsequent move to Kuala Lumpur and of the present-day filmmakers and their films. From the 1950s and up to the late 1990s, it had been only a Malay cinema. With the advent of technology that democratised filmmaking, a Malaysian cinema of diverse narratives and styles has developed and running parallel to the established mainstream cinema. It is one that has achieved international recognition and which appears to depict a truer and more realistic face of a Malaysia that is facing up to various challenges in the millenium.
The writing of a book such as this is a daunting task and all the more so when it is a one-man endeavour. As someone who is passionate about the film industry, I also bring my own critical opinions on some of the films. There is also criticism of some industry players and bureaucrats based on my own observations and involvement in the industry for almost fifty years. These criticisms have also been made by the practitioners but they are not done publicly for obvious reasons.
I am however delighted that some of my filmmaker friends like Mamat Khalid, James Lee, Amir Muhammad, U-Wei Hajisaari, Chris Chong, Khir Rahman, Wan Azli Wan Jusoh and Yeo Joon Han have articulated their criticisms of the industry through subtext in their films. The ordinary man may not be able to pick these up but thats precisely what real cinema is all about. Subtexts are for the discerning. As U-Wei once remarked: If I make an intelligent film, I would need an equally intelligent audience to share it with.
