SEPT 10 — It’s been months since Malaysians were last excited by a local film. It’s also been months since I last found the excitement to write about one, even if I still do make it a point to try and catch as many local films as I can in cinemas, with hopes of stumbling upon an unexpected little Malaysian gem to keep my faith in Malaysian cinema alive.
The film that everyone’s talking about right now is Pekak, the directing debut of K-roll Azry (aka Mohd Khairul Azri), which has been garnering rave reviews ever since it opened in Malaysian cinemas last week.
In a way I feel kind of proud to see it getting all this attention, not quite the proud mother but maybe a proud little brother, as I’ve been raving about it in this column since last year when I first saw a rough cut of the film.
Having now seen the final cut, I can happily report that despite the cuts demanded by the Malaysian Censorship Board, the film has lost none of its power and meaning.
As you’ve probably read somewhere already, Pekak is the story of two young lovers named Uda and Dara. Played by the wonderfully expressive Zahiril Adzim and the wonderfully innocent Sharifah Amani respectively, you can read the film as either a loose adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet or Usman Awang’s Uda Dan Dara, and you won’t be too far off the mark.
Where the story gets really interesting is the details. Like one of my favourite Malaysian movies in recent years, Songlap, Pekak dives headlong into a world we rarely see in local films — a world of average Joes living in cramped flats trying hard to make ends meet.
In short, it is a world that most of our cinema-going public sees and experiences every day, which ironically makes it a world that a lot of them would rather not see on the big screen as what they want (or need) most from spending RM10 to RM15 a pop to sit in a dark, air-conditioned room in the company of strangers is to escape from that particular world in the first place.
Knowing very well how commercially risky this strategy is, of setting the film in that world, the filmmakers have wisely chosen to also entertain its audience instead of just making another statement or taking the pulse of current day Malaysia with the film.
We get plenty of involving character identification from the deaf Uda’s quest to raise money for a cochlear implant so that he can finally get to hear what the world sounds like. We get to swoon at a pair of star-crossed lovers as Uda falls in love with high school student Dara.
We get some hilarious comic hijinks as Dara and her schoolmate Melur (an excellent Sharifah Sakinah) play innocent in front of Dara’s father and of course we get some genuine movie villains in rich kid Kamil (a despicably douche-y Iedil Putra) and the brilliantly named Azman Picasso, a junkie painter/artist deliciously played by everyone’s favorite young Malaysian actor, Amerul Affendi.
But most wonderful of all, we get a lot of irony and not-so-hidden metaphors just waiting to be unpacked by the more attentive among the film’s audience. The film’s title alone (pekak means “deaf” in Malay), provides plenty of food for thought when you think about the myriad things that the movie’s characters have either chosen to, or unknowingly be, deaf to.
No matter how endearing and sweet Uda’s character may be, the fact remains that to raise the money he needs for that cochlear implant he became a drug pusher, which makes him deaf (or blind) to the fact that drugs will have painful consequences to the people he sells them to, as he will painfully find out as the film progresses.
No matter how smart and innocent Dara is, she is still deaf (or blind) to the dangers of fully trusting her best friend Melur and letting Melur put her in situations that are quite clearly dangerous. And the list goes on.
Every single character is deaf (or blind) to something, which is clear evidence of how carefully thought out the whole thing is. And let’s not even begin to ponder the film’s many delicious ironies as a result of the characters’ deafness to each other.
And when you add to that how beautifully photographed and how well-directed the whole thing is, you’ll begin to realize how special this little movie is.
The whole film may be a relentless forward march towards destruction as the characters contribute to their own downfall as they remain oblivious not only to their many vices but also towards each other, but it’s a death march with plenty of beauty and meaning, like one extraordinarily symbolic (and cinematic) scene in which Dara’s torn party dress is mended with her school name tag (dara means both “virginity” and “virgin” in Malay), if only we remain alert and not deaf to it.
A powerful and impressively unflinching debut, Pekak is tough and tender in equal measures. Go see it. Now!
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
