Assalamualaikum & hello to everyone.
This is the first time I ever write for this group,
and as any other usual first time experiences I ever
had in my life, I am nervous.
I ain't going to talk much, but I have here something
on our very own local movie the much-to-say-about
'Spinning Gasing'. It was written by Norman Yusoff,
whom was a friend turn tutor in the Faculty of
Performing Arts, UiTM, Shah Alam. Personally, as a
friend, I would like to share his review with all of
the filem melayu subscribers.
Hope you'll like it...

Best regard,
Izwah


SPINNING GASING - A TRULY MALAYSIAN FILM
by Norman Yusoff

At last, the much-hyped local English-language film
Spinning Gasing is here. It was banned in the first
place for offending
religious and racial sensitivities, amongst others.
With the subsequent lifting of the ban, we're left
with a heavily censored
film. Still, it easily outstrips any other local films
of the year, ranging from the highly-expensive,
tedious Syukur 21 to the
excruciatingly banal Sara. Moreover, it has been doing
quite well at the international film festivals (Gasing
won the
NETPAC JURY SPECIAL MENTION Award at Hawaii
International Film Festival and BEST ACTRESS Award at
Cinemaya Festival of Asian Films in New Delhi, India).

First time writer-director Teck Tan has audaciously
tackled disparate issues within the volatile mix of
races and religions
whilst painting a sincere, stirring portrait of human
relationships against a backdrop of Malaysia's rapidly
modernising
culture. Teck Tan has made a fascinating,
slice-of-life story as seen throughout the characters'
journey to the East Coast.
He's adroitly brought together a combustible
smorgasbord of young Malaysians who represent a
microcosm of Malaysian
society.

There is an effervescent, adamant Chinese bloke, after
coming home from studies abroad, has failed to live up
to his
father's expectations, resulting in the disruption and
dissolution of the familial bonds. A sophisticated
Malay girl (preferring
Dance Music and Syair rather than Dangdut) who lives
the GenerationX lives yet still conforms to
traditional values and
religion. A sexually-promiscuous, self-centred
so-called Eurasian girl whose Chinese roots have been
diluted. An
easy-going, contented, incorrigible homosexual. An
Indian chap (still fancying Bollywood music and
Chicken Tandoori)
who's yet to come to terms with his own sexual
orientation.

The result? Spinning Gasing - unlike any other local
efforts - is truly Malaysian. Teck Tan is determined
to show the world
through his feature film debut that there is more to
Malaysia than its economically-fertile achievement and
world's tallest
building. Set in contemporary Malaysia where the
tradition and modern life are often at odds with each
other, Gasing
sometimes veers into dangerously earnest territory,
but it manages always to right itself with its
disarming sincerity and its
winning performances.

This eye-opening story centres on a group of five hip
young Malaysians who plan to pursue their dreams in
music. After
forming a band, they strenuously struggle to make ends
meet and end up fleeing their hedonistic urban lives
when a
kick-ass loan shark comes looking for the money they
spent on the equipment. They cross the mountains,
beautiful
Malaysian landscape while absconding to the East Coast
where traditional Malay cultures still dominate (I'm
curious as to
why the faux-haven-of-morality i.e.East Coast has
often been our filmmakers' favourite "bastion" when it
comes to
portraying our cultural aestheticism. Remember Aziz
M.Osman's Fenomena and Erma Fatima's Perempuan Melayu
Terakhir?) En route, their dreams and personalities
clash. They learn and discover more about themselves
and how they -
coming from diverse races and backgrounds - perceive
and accept one another.

Here, Gasing tends to be a road movie or more aptly, a
buddy movie -- a genre invented by American cinema
(e.g. Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Easy Rider, Midnight
Cowboy, Thelma & Louise). To this extent, Gasing isn't
much a
road movie if comparisons are to be made to the
previous local road movie - Hishamuddin Rais' Dari
Jemapoh Ke
Manchester as Gasing is more about survival than
allegory. And that's its gritty strength. Gasing
follows more vieux jeu
narrative patterns where it uses traditional elements
of the road movie such as romance, humour, and
camaraderie. The
motivation of the five characters hitting the road is
typical of the road movie genre -- they need to flee
after committing
some sorts of peccadillos.

What fascinates me most is the subject matters
addressed in the film that are startling, sensitive,
and daring in the context
of Malaysian cinema, albeit a far cry from any
acclaimed foreign works, say, Spike Lee's incendiary
tales (The Jungle
Fever, Do the Right Thing) or Hanif Kureishi's messily
brilliant script My Beautiful Laundrette. Teck Tan
hasn't shied away
from controversial subjects here and some people think
that such issues need to be nipped in the bud. At
least, his film has
provoked some moralists. For instance, one of the
holier-than-thou commentators in Mingguan Malaysia
(Sunday, Oct.14)
simply expressed her parochial views by tagging Gasing
as a "sleazy, immoral Malaysian film" due to its
depiction of
taboo elements such as homosexuality where one of the
scenes showing a guy sleeping with
his own gender. The stick-in-the-mud commentator also
questioned over how liberal Malaysia has been with
regard to this
matter? Hallo, were she definitely sure that 100
percent of Malaysian population consists of merely
heterosexuals??? In
retrospect, elements of homosexuality were already
embedded in few local movies such as Nasir Jani's
Rozana Cinta '87,
Abdul Razak Aziz's Awas and the recent Hishamuddin
Rais' cynical road movie Dari Jemapoh Ke Manchester
which
contains homoerotic subtexts.

The commentator commented further on some sensitive
issues addressed in the film which, to her
understanding, are
egregious insult to Islam by giving example where one
of the characters say: "Luckily I'm not a Muslim,
otherwise I'd be
punished for committing khalwat." I strongly feel that
that's a very honest depiction of non-Muslims'
thoughts regarding
Islam. I am of the opinion that the commentator must
have lacked a sense of cognizance. She, after all,
should realise that
film is supposed to represent reality. More to do than
featuring an infantile romance between a rich girl and
a poor boy or
having the characters pompously sipping the fresh Oren
in some posh restaurants. I wish the commentator could
extricate
herself out of her narrow tempurung. At least, there
is a kernel of truth for the characters portrayed in
Gasing. The director
expertly exposes the unspoken and unacknowledged
racial-religious prejudice that permeates the
multi-racial Malaysian
community. As the character Chantal puts it: "It's a
lot easier to stick with your own kind." And also the
interracial and
interreligious relationship which lies at the heart of
the story between Harry and Yati. Complications arise
when Harry is
unwilling to convert.

The only setback is that the script needs a little
more polishing as after 30 minutes it seems to be
lacking focus, with so
many things need to be addressed. Teck Tan also has
given much emphasis on the loan shark keeps looking
for Harry.
You feel that a surface reenacment isn't enough, and
that more needs to be said for and about the
characters, especially
the torrid triangle love affair between Harry, Yati,
and Chantal. The film also loses control at its finale
with an abrupt,
simplistic ending which belies the seriousness which
came before it.

The subtexts are quite rich. The film opens with a
bang -- the viewer being drawn into the close-ups of
the spinning beautiful
tops (as the title literally means) where the tops
remain a popular traditional game in the East Coast as
it inevitably
symbolises the lives and the fragile, tumultuous
relationships amongst the characters. In this respect,
life has normally been
associated with the spinning tops as it has its ups
and downs where it keeps whirling and whirling until
it falters. While their
journey to the East Coast symbolically means the
process they undergo upon pursuing their dreams. The
beautifully
haunting traditional song Ulik Mayang (very
reminiscent of Aziz M.Osman's Fenomena) is
incorporated as artistic
metaphor to bolster the story, representing the
forbidden love between Harry and Yati. However, the
way it's interspersed in
the story seems forced, unconvincing, and too
coincidence-prone. The lyrical image - shot in high
angle - with Yati and
Harry floating on the water whilst holding hands
together and later on drifting apart has an aesthetic
impact but it appears
too soon and a tad drastic, leaving the audience
discombobulated. Hence, you may not be able to relate
to the story.

The director's sardonic view of Malaysian urban life
as well as the glitteringly nocturnal Kuala Lumpur is
something
fascinating to look at (This is enhanced by impressive
cinematography, though I wish it'd go as giddily a
wild as in Wong
Kar Wai's Chungking Express). Kuala Lumpur's
ostentatious flashiness may serve as a nice
counterpoint to the clunky
modernism as well as the sleazy, filthy parts of the
city. Strikingly photographed by award-winning
cinematographer Teoh
Gay Hian (whose work in Perempuan Melayu Terakhir is
exceptional), Gasing is nevertheless bogged down by
Teck
Tan's stiff, television-like approach to scenes
(especially the scene involving Harry and his Dad at
home which pretty much
works like TV3's Kisah Benar), ultimately robbing the
movie of much power. The scenes featuring the
gangsters seem very
redolent of any action-packed movies from Hong Kong.

The sound effect works effectively in this film
(perhaps the best work in local productions) and it's
also used as precise
sources of meaning, contributing to the story. The
action sequences involving the gangsters, the
high-pitched sounds are
employed to generate suspense by producing a sense of
tension in the listener. Not only is the sound
effective, the score
also is well-composed. Music which is merged with
lyrics (like the Ulik Mayang) acquires a more concrete
content
because words have specific references (in this case
Ulik Mayang represents Harry-Yati's forbidden love).
The director
also knows how to juxtapose clashing score and visual
(while Chantal is on the phone, the camera also
follows Yati - in her
tudung and baju kurung - heading to her religious
brother's house. The beautiful score, replete with
Middle-Eastern touch
starts to soar).

Ellie Suriaty Omar (who won the award in New Delhi) is
an exquisitely understated actress who manages to
convey a depth
of feeling in even the smallest gestures. And while
the initial spark between Yati and Harry isn't
entirely convincing, once
their romance begins to blossom it is endearingly
believable. Best of all, the love story isn't the
hackneyed ones as we've
seen in a bunch of local movies before. The romantic
plot is quite surreptitiously developed in which
towards the end, you
don't feel quite immersed in their romantic gyration.
But such an attempt - successfully devoid any
mawkishness - doesn't
nullify the impact of its romantic, emotional texture
unless you could sense a strained credulity prior to
its denouement.

The drop-dead delightful Craig Fong (Harry Lee) is
articulate, decent, and you'll love his English
accent. Corrinne Adri
plays Chantal in an exaggerated manner, turning on the
prima donna-ish charm one minute than shifting into
terseness or
rampaging bitchiness. The startlingly sheer delight is
acclaimed stage actor, Edwin R.Sumun who steals the
show, giving a
polished refinement to the garrulous, flamboyant queer
role (replete with stereotypical gay mannerisms and
androgynous
dressing). Sanjeet Jarnail who plays JJ is able to
make audience laugh with his spontaneous banter, and
he could have
been better if the script delves more into his
character. Supporting actors are less impressive here.
Hani Mohsin's hoary
character (as Tan Sri's son) who is a philanderer or
to use an affectionate phrase here - "bourgeois scum"
is the most
cliched the movie has to offer. Of course, we're tired
to see the ubiquitous Jalaluddin Hassan (as Tan Sri)
with his similar
acting pattern. Rosyam Nor makes a self-effacing cameo
playing Yati's self-righteous, conservative brother,
not
contributing much to the story.

I wish I could see the original, uncensored version of
this film since the plot is rather choppy due to
arbitrary, over-zealous
cuts by our ridiculous Censorship Board. Despite its
blemish, Spinning Gasing is still delectable to watch
since it is truly
Malaysian -- in the truest sense. And one feels
churlish to complain of the fact when many other local
movies - since the
1970s - have been so Malay-centric which basically
dwell on soporific run-of-the-mill love stories. Thus,
it's a nice change
indeed. Once you accept that, it's not only
"Malaysian", but an auspicious feature debut from a
bold, promising young
director.

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