Slumdog deja vu

If it all seems a little too familiar, could it be that it’s because we have been here before - down this alleyway, past that dobi - seen that girl become a prostitute, that boy a thief.

In itself Slumdog Millionaire is a good enough film, good enough to be an Oscar winner for best motion picture of the year, as well as a plethora of other Oscar awards including best music (by A.R.Rahman). Rahman being an obvious choice after his association not only with the Indian film industry, but more specifically having produced music for hit films such as Mani Ratnam’s Bombay (1995).

Slumdog Millionaire, the film, was taken from the 2005 novel Q&A by Vikas Swarup - an Indian civil servant. It had a modest success, including being made into a radio play and stage musical before British film maker Danny Boyle adapted the book into the film Slumdog Millionaire.

Slumdog Millionaire follows Jamal Malik (DevPatel), a Muslim street-dwelling child, from the death of his mother during Hindu anti-Muslim riots, through his crime ridden life on the streets to his appearance on the Indian version of the TV show - Who Wants to be a Millionaire (Kaun Banega Crorepati). In the film the TV show is hosted by Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor) but in real life was hosted by Indian megastar Amitabh Bachan and in subsequent series by the equally famous Shahrukh Khan.

Doyle’s film about slums and slum denizens is narrated by the character Jamal. Jamal is held in a police station, for alleged cheating in the quiz show - Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Jamal is initially tortured then formerly questioned, regarding his knowledge of the questions asked during the TV show. There is a supposition that no child of the streets could possibly know the answers to the questions posed, especially as India’s educated have tried and failed to claim the final prize - of twenty thousand Indian Rupees.

The majority of the film is shown in flashback, as Jamal reconstructs the events which lead to him learning the answers for the show – the hard way.

In Slumdog Millionaire we are witness to Boyle’s characteristic grittiness ala Trainspotting (1996) and 28 Days Later (2002), but this time wrapped around a Bollywood type love story between the principle character - Jamal, his elder brother Salim (Madhur Mitall) and the love of Jamal’s life Latika (Freida Pinto).

Swarup’s book is not the first concerning the street children of Bombay - Anosh Irani wrote The Cripple and His Talismans (2004) about Bombay street beggars while the Australian writer Clive James had written The Silver Castle (1996) concerned with a street urchin - Sanjay, who is bedazzled by Bollywood and tries to become part of the almost deified Bombay film scene. This proves to be a popular theme, once again taken up in the stage musical Bombay Dreams (2002), written by Meera Syal, produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with music by the now famous A.R.Rahman.

Nor is Danny Boyle’s film the first revealing the harsh life endured by some destitute children, when they have to fend for themselves amidst the terrors, and hardships of unsympathetic city life.

Previously there had been Luis Bunuel’s Los Olvidados (The Forgotten Ones - 1950) concerning poverty in Mexico City and later Hector Babenco’s Pixote a lei do Mais Franco (Pixote – The Law of the Weakest – 1981) about childhood poverty in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, while Mira Nair’s story about the street urchin Krishna - Salaam Bombay (1988) is a more obvious comparison for Slumdog Millionaire.

Nair’s character Krishna, like Jamal in Boyle’s film, is also a char wallah but where Krisha’s tale is one of hopelessness and despair right until the final scenes of the film, at the end of Boyle’s film the audience is transported into a typical Bollywood ending, with a small wink to trainspotting as the final scene is all singing and all dancing at Victoria Terminus – that infamous Bombay train station - to the strains of A.R.Rahman’s Jai Ho.

Merdeka 57

It was sheer happenstance that I was in KLCC and came across Galeri Petronas and its current exhibition.

Go Block, at Galeri Petronas, features the innovative work of five contemporary Malaysian printmakers – Juhari Said, Kim Ng Peow, Izan Tahir, Zulkifli Yusoff, and Shahrul Jamili, and is guest curated by Badrolhisham Mohd Tahir.

The vivid complexity of print technique and imagery, in the exhibition Go Block, pique the gallery visitor's curiosity as soon as they witness these intellectually stimulating and impressionably memorable artworks. These pioneering, contemporary prints interact with the observer in unique ways, extending beyond the traditional two-dimensional printed form, and reach out in a third dimension to wrestle with our preconceptions of print.

Each of the 5 artists reveal fresh, and very different, ways of thinking about print, printing, and an exploration of relationships between the print medium, that which is printed, and the substrate surfaces they are printed onto. The visitor positively revels in a plenitude of printed textures revealed in two or three-dimensionality, encouraging reconsiderations of previously preconceived ideas and approaches to the art and the craft of print making.

Having admired the exhibition as a whole, it was Zulkifli Yusoff's Merdeka 57 - a contemporary, perhaps avant garde print installation, which attracted my increasingly jaundiced eye and literally stood out to engage me as a gallery visitor.

In its totality, this set piece - Merdeka 57 is comprised of what presents itself to be a minimalist 'theatrical' setting (perhaps a play upon the concept of the theatre of war), with 'walls' painstakingly arranged and printed with signs and symbols from Malaysia's recent past as well as printed film stills featuring the English actor Jack Hawkins.

In front of a very imposing screen-printed wall, subtle décollage layers nestle, adding physical depth to the existing symbolic depth of the fundamental two-dimensional imagery. In the foreground, between the visitor and the background wall, are 3D boxes, covered with screen-printed material. They rest like vacant set props awaiting the imposition of multi-layered meaning within this contemporary stage production. Two 3D constructed 'fruits' sit, one atop of a 3D box and the other is situated between that box and the rear wall. The 'fruit' furthest away resembles an oiled paper umbrella (in the shape of an apple) and the other, also resembling an apple (constructed of printed canvas) stands, on the near box, drawing the viewer's eye through the 'production' and to the additional meaning relayed by the printed walls behind.

On the rear walls a complex system of printed symbols present themselves - ranging from the frequently repeated word 'Merdeka', to the photo-screen printed mono-colour images of betel fruit, sliced apples, and the reverse side of a 1948 Malayan 20 cent coin. Together the printed imagery references that period of Malaysia's history between the incident which the colonial British euphemistically referred to as 'The Emergency' (16^th June 1948) to the eventual gaining of independence and the 'setting free' of that single act of Merdeka itself, on 31^st August 1957.

Merdeka 57 is familiar as it stands as a reminder of other Zulkifli Yusoff's socio- political works, displaying both his deftness and great skill as a social historian and his voice as a concerned commenter. The artist Zulkifli Yusoff weaves a complex, yet subtle, narrative of Malaya under the British. In this imposing work Zulkifli Yusoff uses understated images - from the black and white 'nice cup of tea' image, to the representations taken from the 1952 film - The Planter's Wife, starring Claudette Colbert and Jack Hawkins (directed by Ken Annakin - also called Outpost in Malaya) to narrate both fictional and factual tales of those final days of colonial imposition, and its eventual demise.

This set metaphorical and theatrical piece portrays a Malaya drawing to the end of British rule, sliding inevitably towards Malaya's independence and triumphant cries of Merdeka. Witnessing the oft repeated word – Merdeka, the visitor to Zulkifli Yusoff's work is reminded that on the final day of Malaya's colonial captivity the new Prime Minister - Tunku Abdul Rahman exclaimed Merdeka, Merdeka, Merdeka, Merdeka, Merdeka, Merdeka, Merdeka (7 times) to ecstatically cheering crowds and to an expectant nation.

Standing before Zulkifli Yusoff's Merdeka 57 that very same energy and passion of Tunku Abdul Rahman's exclamation again echoes to embrace the visitor, calling insistently from the printed back wall, and screaming, red, from the 'floor'.

Merdeka 57 is without a doubt an intensely thought provoking piece, with some subtleties requiring more investigation than others, and this is why, of course, the work remains so intriguing to the gallery visitor.

While the very concept of 'art as installation' hails back to Dada and Surrealism - with artists such as Marcel Duchamp with his 'readymades' (1915) and Salvador Dali's 'Rainy Taxi' (1938) Zulkifli Yusoff's work gives a nod to the 1960s and the heydays of Pop Art and contemporary installations. Perhaps Merdeka 57's more immediate forbear is the ubiquitous Andy Warhol, whose screen printed boxes were seen to break down barriers between High and Low, the Fine and the Popular in art.

As a contemporary printed 3D installation Merdeka 57 is reminiscent of 'Pop Art' icon Andy Warhol's infamous screen printed box constructs, like the outstanding Campbell's Tomato Juice (25.4 x 48.3 x 49.5 cm), or colourful Del Monte Peach Halves (24.1 x 38.1 x 49.5 cm), the very realistic Brillo Soap pads (43.2 x 43.2 x 35.6 cm) or the 1963 Heinz Tomato ketchup box (25.4 x 48.3 x 24.2 cm). Many of these works were constructed using polymer paint and silkscreen ink, silkscreen printed onto plywood. Though in this regard the process may be similar, but Zulkifli Yusoff's boxes remain cloaked only in black and white plaid-like material, not the clothes of popular branding.

In this way Zulkifli Yusoff adds yet another dimension to his already complex work. And while on the subject of 1960s artists, there is a faint resemblance, within Merdeka 57, to the posters of Japan's best loved Pop artist - Tadanori Yukoo. Could this, therefore, be a very subtle, covert, reference to the Japanese occupation of Malaya?

In this overview of Zulkifli Yusoff's Merdeka 57, I would be very remiss if I were not mention the works of Malaysia's own Redza Piyadasa in relation to both Zulkifli Yusoff and Andy Warhol.

Piyadasa, in his final and perhaps greatest works - the Malaysian Series (1980- 2005) subverted the later work of Andy Warhol using techniques and colouring reflecting those of Warhol, but seen through Malaysian eyes and with Malaysian imagery. This exquisite artistic baton, dropped at the demise of one of Malaysia's best loved artists - Redza Piyadsa, appears to have been taken up by Zulkifli Yusoff, as demonstrated in many of his more recent printed works, and in the construct of Merdeka 57.

As all artists, to some extent, extract a known truth from here and a suspected truth from there, and, with their experience and great skill create their own unique truth. So it is with Zulkifli Yusoff who has crafted his narrative voice to bring to his 'audience's' attention those multiple images which form Merdeka 57 and 'speak' his message with subtle clarity.

Merdeka 57 may be found in Go Block - February 5th to March 15th 2009 Galeri Petronas, KLCC.

It's in the Title, Duh!

This is a response to Hari Azizan’s review of the film Changeling, directed by Clint Eastwood, in The Star newspaper today Saturday February 7^th 2009.

It seems that poor Hari was somewhat disappointed by the film, in which Angelina Jolie plays the role of a single mother whose son goes missing.

Maybe Hari expected another Lara Croft character, or Fox from the film Wanted, and found it difficult to realise that Ms Jolie can act as well as leap and point guns, ho hum.

Hari is not convinced by Angelina’s portrayal of devastation and despair over the loss of her son. She alludes to conceited scenes, but never expresses what they are, and accuses the film of needing glamour brought by the addition of Angelina Jolie to head the cast.

On what are these assumptions based, did we see the same film?

Hari seems to think that the film was solely about the Wineville Chicken Coop murders, oh dear, did she miss the beginning of the film entirely - didn’t she read the title? Oh well put it down to cultural misunderstandings then.

The film opens revealing widespread corruption in a police department gone bad (1920s, Los Angeles Police Department). A mother and her son live together, the child’s father having skipped off because he couldn’t handle the responsibility.

The two themes clash head on when the mother (Angelina Jolie) returns home late from work to find her son missing. The police department is unconcerned. During the next few months the mother battles to have the police department acknowledge that her son is alive and missing.

Eventually the police department haul in a boy and produce him as her son. He isn’t - hence the title of the film – Changeling.

The film title is taken from common Western folklore where a ‘fairy’ baby is exchanged for a human baby soon after birth. In some tales ‘changeling’ fairy children bleed the mothers of their life force, whereas the human child may be used as a slave for fairies or as new stock for the fairy line to prevent inbreeding.

Had the film been called The Wineville Chicken Coop murders, Hari may have a point, but sadly for her it wasn’t. Therefore all of Hari’s protestations that “The killings and the police corruption scandal are by far a more gripping and powerful aspect of the whole story” are mute because the focus is on the mother and the child, his disappearance and substitute by the authorities. It’s in the very title of the film itself Hari.

Jolie, as the mother, protests that the new child isn’t hers, but is ignored and eventually thrown into Los Angeles County Hospital’s ‘psychopathic ward’, both to silence her as an embarrassment to the police department and because she is obviously insane as she doesn’t recognised her own son. The film deals with the mother’s disempowerment and abuse by those in authority, from police to psychiatrists and staff at the hospital.

The Wineville Chicken Coop murders is an add-on to this mother’s story, in an attempt to try to explain what may have happened to the mother’s son. By the end of the film there has been an emotional rollercoaster, as the audience is held in suspension over what may have occurred to this woman’s only child, and the blatant abuse of authority.

Obviously Hari and I disagree. She believes that the central character was not compelling, whereas I believe that Angelina Jolie suited the character well as a middle-class working manager, a mother, and a woman who authority tries to manipulate and abuse.

Hantu & Popcorn

While in the West, speculative fictions have developed from writing as wildly diverse as Lord Dunsany’s wondrous stories and Thomas M Disch hard core Science Fiction, the history of Malaysian (English language) speculative fiction stories, remains a comparatively brief one,

Malaysia revels in legends, myths and tales drawn from the country’s multifaceted and multicultural past. Malaysian folklore is steeped in stories gleaned from Hinduism, Islam and ancient animism. Echoes of tales, and stories from indigenous tribes peoples sit, sarong clad, knee to knee with those dropped en passant by Dutch, Portuguese and English settlers - though many tales are only available through the Malay language.

Contemporary Malaysian speculative fiction mostly draws upon those ancient legends and myths to create stories of horror - especially those involving vampires (Pontianak) and wild assortments of the supernatural including a myriad ghost (Hantu) stories. These dark tales drip blood over mini –magazines (‘penny dreadful’ or ‘Pulp’ magazines) in a publishing market largely dominated by Malay language horror fictions.

Aside from Malay horror, fluffy pink Malay romances make up the rest of the popularist publishing market, giving teen and twenty girls insights into romantic worlds they will only encounter in such books and magazines, unless they lounge soaking up the cool air-con in cinemas projecting the latest Hindi or Tamil romantic masala movies.

The ghoulish national obsession for ghosts, spirits and all manner of supernatural flying, crawling and creeping beings permeates throughout Malaysian popular culture, and is easily available in low cost magazines and cheap thrill books. Over the last few decades such fictions have gnawed and clawed their way into a growing Malay comic book industry which, like the ‘pulp’ magazines, feeds extensively from local legend and lore.

Comparatively little in the way of other speculative fictions exists, save for one magazine - Gempak (Shocking). This innovative Malay language magazine styles itself as ‘The Magazine for the New Generation’. As a teen orientated compendium Gempak features local and Manga influenced comic book material serials such as Helios Eclipse by Kaoru, as well as film reviews, the latest TV news, Game reviews, general articles and interviews.

Aside from comics and those compact pulp-like magazines depicting ‘real’ or fictionalised ghost stories there has been one, long running, Malay language, series of horror books.

During the 1980s Tamar Jalis (a pseudonym) produced a number of horror stories for a magazine called Variasari. These spooky and quite graphically gruesome stories were compiled into book form, later called Bercakap Dengan Jin (Talking to Demons). Somewhere in the region of 200 horror-story books (in Malay) were produced over a number of series and years.

Precursors to Malay horror writing, and comics, were the 1950s Malay horror films. These early, black and white, Malay horror films greatly resemble American ‘B’ movies, with their simplicity of sets, paucity of storyline and exaggerated dramatics - all accompanied by darkly rich, sombre music.

In 1957 Cathay Keris Films made Pontianak (Vampire), then came Serangan Orang Minyak (Attack of the Oily Man) by Cathy Keris Films in 1958. Sumpah Orang Minyak (Curse of the Oily Man) by Malay Film Productions ltd followed in 1958, while Cathay Keris Films made Sumpah Pontianak (Curse of the Vampire) also in 1958.

More recent Malay horror films resemble the 1950s/60s British Hammer films, of which there has been a contemporary upsurge with films like Rahsia (The Secret, 1980s) and the infamous Pesona Pictures horror films - Pontianak harum sundal malam ( Restless Vampire, 2004), and its sequel the following year, with Waris jari hantu (The legacy of the Ghost Finger, 2007), Dukun (Witch Doctor) also in 2007 and Histeria (Hysteria) in 2008.

English language Malaysian speculative fictions have proven to be a slow emerging field.

Though living in Tasmania, Tunku Halim (pseudonym), writes mainly for the Malaysian horror market, and has, seemingly, taken the lead in English language horror writing, with novels like ‘Dark Demon Rising’, (1997) and short story collections such as ‘44 Cemetery Road’ short stories (2007). Because of the consistency of his work, and there being no contenders for his crown, Tunku Halim reigns supreme as the Stephen King of Malaysia.

Competition is slow to challenge Tunku Halim, but in recent years the anthology volumes Dark City (2006) and Dark City 2 (2007) edited by Xeus (Lynette Kwan) - published by Midnight Press have intended to do just that.

Dark City: Psychotic and other Twisted Malaysian Tales is a compendium of writing, ranging from terror to horror and suspense. Dark City 2, its sequel, incorporates storylines from a man learning to kill, 15^th century angels, the intense agony of entombment and the bitter sweetness of man’s revenge for the death of his wife and son.

While English language speculative fictions, in Malaysia, may be slow to take off in novel or short story format, their august and illustrative presence may be felt within the Malaysian comic book medium. Well fed on diets of Superman, Spiderman and Batman today’s Malaysian twenty, and thirty somethings, are well versed in reading speculative sequential art.

The Malaysian comic book industry, fledgling in the 1980s is beginning to come of age in the 2000s. As well as re-producing Japanese and Chinese Manga forms in English and Malay, the Malaysian comic book industry is generating stunning new works by Malaysian writers and artists, many of whom are currently also involved in the American comic book industry.

Works by artist/writers like Leong Wan Kok (aka Puyuh – quail) bring fresh dimensions to the Science Fiction and horror genres with images such as Astro Hunter, graphic novels such as Astro Cityzen (2006) and From a Twisted Mind ( 2008).

The new magazine ‘Popcorn’ represents a fresh type of comics magazine for Malaysia, in English. It is modelled on Marvel’s Epic comics magazine and Heavy Metal (French - Metal Hurlant). This young adult comic magazine promises to bring the very best of S.E.Asian and Malaysia comics material to an eagerly waiting, knowledgeable, general public.

This then may be the future of Malaysian speculative fictions – comics and graphic novels.