OCTOBER 4 — Earlier this week, an article in Mingguan Malaysia by veteran writer Mustafar A.R. became a hot topic in the Malaysian film-making scene as many people were simply outraged by the comments made in said article about the quality of nominees for the Festival Filem Malaysia 26 (FFM26). 

Even the article’s headline, “FFM26 Semakin Mengarut”, which roughly translates as “FFM26 getting more ridiculous” is as audience-baiting as they come, which turned out to be true as there were plenty of responses to the article, from tweets to Facebook statuses to even articles, but I still think that I can add a point or two to the chorus of replies that have been making the rounds among Malaysian netizens.

To be perfectly honest, I’m also not in agreement with some of the nominations for FFM26. The fact that Penanggal, admittedly an almost sumptuous visual experience but also clearly a total mess when it comes to matters of tone and storytelling, came to dominate proceedings with a total of 15 nominations should already alarm any serious film fans as to whether to take FFM26 seriously or not. If Mustafar offered this as one of his main arguments against FFM26, then I don’t think that many people would have been outraged.

But when you base almost your entire article around the defence of a film as universally panned as Tanda Putera, then you are simply inviting ridicule from people in the industry. And you’ll only make things worse when your other main line of reasoning involves complaining about how the Best Film nominees are simply horror, psychotic and violent films, to the point of suggesting that it’s better to change the name of FFM26 to Malaysian Festival of Horror, Psychotic and Violent Films, then you are simply inviting even more ridicule.

I’m not going to debate the merits of Tanda Putera here, as I was one of the few who didn’t give the movie a complete thrashing in my review of it elsewhere. What really got to me in Mustafar’s article was his belief that a below average historical and patriotic film like Tanda Putera deserves to be nominated (or even awarded) simply because it is a historical and patriotic film. That, to me, is the biggest mistake that anyone can make when it comes to evaluating film.

The late film critic Roger Ebert has this one famous quote that says that, “It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.” That quote perfectly sums up what people should look out for when evaluating a film. What the movie is about — whether it’s about ghosts, psychotic people, gangsters or important historical figures — does not a movie make. How the film goes about telling what it is about, now that is where the magic of the movies comes from, and what we should evaluate when writing about and even awarding films.

A screengrab from the movie Bunohan, winner of Best Film at the previous FFM25. According to the writer, Malaysian viewers knew it was a special film, one that they could be proud of.

A movie can be about the most immoral of characters or events, yet will still be a great film if it’s executed well enough to make it so. A movie can also be about the most virtuous of characters or events, yet will still turn out to be an awful film if it’s badly made. It’s probably this understanding that escapes him when he also wrote in the article that he fails to see what made Bunohan, winner of Best Film at the previous FFM25, so great, when that fact is plain to see to even the most casual of Malaysian moviegoers. They may have complained that they didn’t really understand what the hell was going on in Bunohan, but they knew it was a special film and one that Malaysians can be proud of.

I would have given the award to Songlap, which I personally think was a better film, but I also understand why people would give it to Bunohan, but that’s another story. What’s important is that, no matter how much I may slightly disagree with the nominations and awards in the last few editions of Festival Filem Malaysia, it’s becoming increasingly clear that whoever’s making the decisions there seems to have understood Ebert’s philosophy, especially in FFM25 and FFM26. Whatever differences of opinion we may have now is all just a matter of taste. So dear FFM26, please just ignore whatever chorus of dissent that may come your way regarding what a movie is about, because you should know better that how it is about it that truly matters.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.