JULY 6 — We Malaysians just love to complain about the bad movies that are the bread and butter of our film industry. A person may actually have no qualms liking horrible Hollywood trash like The Bounty Hounter or The Darkest Hour yet more often than not, this same person will also say with a completely straight face that he or she doesn’t watch local movies. Why? Because local movies are horrible, of course.
The stigma is so bad, that when a good local movie, or simply one that’s worth the ticket price, comes out, more often than not that good movie will sink at the local box-office.
The thing is, there are generally three types of movie-watching Malaysians. Firstly, there are those who’ll never, ever, watch a local film regardless of the quality — they simply don’t watch local films.
Then there are those who usually don’t go to the cinema to watch local films but will sometimes do so if they think a particular film is worth the time, money and effort to do so.
And lastly, there are those who do actively seek out local movies, but mainly for pleasure, and it is this crowd that all those rempit, hantu, gangster, komedi bangang, komedi seram, jiwang karat and Islamic movies target.
The complainers about local movies usually belong to the second category of Malaysian movie-watchers. The first category normally doesn’t even care enough to complain, and the third category is usually just happy to gobble up whatever movies thrown at them as long as their favourite stars are in it.
In short, a quality local film or at least one that aspires to be something a little bit more well crafted and a wee bit more intelligent than your run-of-the-mill mainstream Malaysian movie is usually targeted at the second category of Malaysian movie-watchers.
Sometimes when the stars align and a particular film is lucky enough to have a bankable name actor in it, then maybe a little bit of that third category will turn up in the cinemas as well, as demonstrated by Songlap which had the country’s biggest movie star then, Shaheizy Sam, in a starring role.
But just a cursory look at the box-office numbers of the small coterie of films aspiring to be a little bit more than dumb entertainment will reveal that the complainers rarely turn up in enough numbers to justify producers making these so-called "smarter" movies.
The stunning critical reputation of Bunohan only yielded RM780,000 in box-office takings. The socially conscious Chow Kit only managed to collect RM450,000, the underrated Dalam Botol also only managed to pocket a meagre RM570,000 and recent darling Kil, for all the praise and buzz it got from Malaysian netizens, still only managed to take only RM510,000 at the local box office.
Even the late, great Yasmin Ahmad was not spared the same fate as her final two movies didn’t fare well at the local box-office as Talentime only managed RM420,000 at the box office and Muallaf did even worse with a collection of RM190,000.
Even Sell Out?, a Malaysian movie musical with international-class production values that made it to the Venice Film Festival, failed to pull in the complainers by collecting the even sadder amount of RM160,000.
The only exception has been Songlap, which pocketed a cool RM2.13 million, but surely that’s mostly thanks to the normal Malaysian movie fans (i.e. those belonging to the third category) turning up in droves to see Shaheizy Sam rather than the complainers turning up the heat at the local box office.
So the painful reality is, as long as the complainers just keep on doing the talking, but not much of the walking (which is actually pretty normal when it comes to us Malaysians), nothing much will change.
Like it or not, film is a business. It’s an industrial process, and it costs money. Thanks to pro-sumer quality digital cameras available in the market it may be cheaper to shoot a feature film now, but all the other processes (like sound design and mixing, colour correction, kine transfer) needed to turn the film into anything resembling a professional product that can be screened in movie theatres or at the very least make it to international film festivals would still cost a handsome amount of money. Money means investment, and investors will want returns.
And if it’s inferior products that can generate returns, then that’s what the producers will make. Things will only change if people care enough to show the producers that there is a sizable enough audience out there for these "smarter" films to be made.
There’s a reason why France still produces and shows a healthy amount of art-house films despite opposition from mainstream French films and Hollywood films — people actually go to the cinema or buy original DVDs and Blu-rays to see them.
Take, for example, the Iranian film A Separation, which got around one million admissions in France (so if it’s €10 (RM42) per movie ticket, then that’s €10 million at the box office for an Iranian art-house film!).
Yes, the filmmakers have a duty of their own to take their art and craft seriously, but we as the audience have our own duty as well. In fact, the power is in our hands actually. So walk the talk, and maybe, just maybe, things will change.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
