Rabun, Cik Siti Wan Kem dan Waiting For Godot Too

Dah kerja hampir 10 tahun tapi inilah kali pertama sesuatu yang berharga tertinggal dirumah bila aku dah sampai opis. Dan kesannya aku separuh buta.Nope bukan tertinggal dompet, bukan buku, buku lagi kunci pejabat, tapi cermin mata. tertinggal seluar kat rumah takpe, asal jangan tertinggal spek. Kesannya? Sepanjang hari aku hampir meraba-raba.

Kesnya klasik. Cermin mata tertinggal dalam bilik, dan bilik itu berkunci. Dan kunci bilik itu ada pada wife. So? Takkan aku nak naik motor pi kerja dgn mata aku tak nampak? Mungkin aku patut ambik cuti. Tanpa cermin mata aku takde bezanya dengan orang yang buta. Tapi apa alasan aku untuk MC? Tertinggal cermin mata dalam bilik? Tak pernah dibuat orang….Not a good excuse. mereka tak akan percaya. bagi mereka yang tak pakai cermin mata itu alasan yang remeh. Jadi aku tiada pilihan kecuali pergi kerja juga...

Terhegeh-hegehlah aku menunggang motorsikal itu. nasib baik tak langgar anjing.

Baru aku tahu macamana rasanya jadi orang buta. Memang siksa.

Ketika naik motor aku berangan2 aku mencipta device yang boleh mengesan cermin mata. Kalau aku American dah lama aku kemukakan idea tu pada siri TV American Inventor. Aku rasa ianya satu idea yang bagus. Sebab aku, dan juga seorang kawan pernah mengeluh kerana kehilangan cermin mata. Dan dia sendiri pernah spend setengah hari mencari cermin mata yang hilang tu.
Dengan alat yang aku cipta ni, bila ditekan butang itu cermin mata yang hilang akan turut berbunyi dan mengeluarkan warna merah. I could be rich. But to think of it, its a stupid invention anyway.....

Maka menontonlah aku preview Cik Siti Wan kembang dan Waiting For Godot Too dalam keadaan separuh buta, separuh blur, separuh sedar. Ye, barulah absurd melayan teater absurd dalam keadaan jelas tak jelas.

Menonton dramatari CSWK membuatkan aku sedar apa yang missing dalam hidup aku. Baru aku sedar yang sebenarnya suka tengok orang menari. Dan tak banyak dance yang aku tonton sebenarnya. Maybe next time kalau ada tarian lagi aku akan pergi tengok. Antara show paling enjoy pernah aku tonton adalah 10 Emas ditangan Suhaimi magi, Joseph Gonzales, Ramli Ibrahim, Dr Zul dan lain-lain lagi.

Waiting For Godot Too (yang dulu pernah dilakonkan oleh 2 komedian Amerika Stever Martin dan Robin William, pelakon kesukaan FIona Kab).
dilakonkan oleh 2 pelakon tempatan yang cukup serasi diatas pentas. Aku suka dengan ton Shukri yang light dan bersahaja.Dia dah pandai mula mengawal nada suaranya dengan baik, sesuai dengan karakternya. Kalau dia terus berusaha insyallah, dia boleh mendapat tempat bila-bila masa sahaja dalam drama swasta TV, melakonkan watak dan karakter 'anak mak' menggantikan Ako Mustapha. Dia cukup serasi dengan watak2 begitu.
dan Fiona pun boleh pergi jauh melakonkan watak multi cultural dengan kepelbagaian slang bahasanya.

Walaupun rabun, tapi dari jauh aku boleh nampak yang mana satu Fiona dan yang mana satu Shukri. Itu tak sukar.

WFDT Bermula dengan persoalan atheist dan berakhir dengan perkataan 1 Malaysia…seolah-olah mengetengahkan idea bahawa isu keagamaan bukan lagi soalan pada zaman ini sebaliknya isu 1Malaysia adalah yang harus ditangani. Idea pengarah untuk sesuatu yang junub dan falsafah yang tinggi kepada sesuatu yang lebih ringan, rasional, logic dan terkini.

Sebagai pengkarya Muslim, sudah tentu Syali tidak mahu menyentuh persoalan agama dengan lebih meruncing, tetapi temptation untuk mengadaptasi naskah klasik ini bukanlah sesuatu yang mudah untuk ditolak godaannya. Kerana pada sesuatu masa ianya kelihatan lebih dekat dengan kisah Zoo Story (another famous absurd play by Edward Albee yang memperkenalkan genre Absurd di Amerika Syarikat). means to have a play based on this famous play of absurdity is..say hard to resist. Walaupun tema dan pendekatannya tak sama dengan Beckerd’s original idea. .. It just like I make a short film title Blade Runner After Deckard, or Life in Mordor After The Ring’s Demise dan juga Who Killed Mr Orange? Not a parody but just a tribute title. That makes Waiting For Godot Too seems like a perfect title for a 10 minutes play.

it nice to stage a play about play. either its a statement agaians it or just to support it. I myself have plan to wirtie something as a reaction against Camus Outsider.

But I think the best thing about that play is that we have to pay to see it. This is rare in this faculty. But a good and revolution. I hope in next stage the students have guts to ask money from the audience.At least with this effort students will have some money and work hards of their production.
This probably a reaction from Ahmad Tarmimi Siregar statement weeks ago in dialog Puncak Perdana on Muzikal Production in Malaysia. “We need to pay the money to see play. No more free stage. No more free Theatre.We have to respect the artist and all their titik peluh and so on bla bla bla”

So this is a good start. 3 ringgit for Waiting For Godot Too will reminds u of 3 Penny Opera by …ahh the mention of that German Brecht again makes me shrink......

Are u ready for Chalk Circle?

3 Budak Melayu....

3 Budak Melayu- tajuknya seakan mudah untuk dibaca. Sorang UMNO, sorang PAS dan sorang PKR. But no sir, this film is not about politics. Thats not their agenda. Like Dude, Wheres My Car whos journey just about for the Demi Moores husband to find his missing car, this 3 Budak Malay as a struggling students with lack of funding and money, just want to make movie. Sounds familliar? yeah just like us all. A subject that is close to home.So thats their struggle. And meeting Ah Long in the process. Whether we believe that thats a true subject or not, thats a different lookout.

On a fine day I would say, 3 Budak Melayu probably has best introduction dialog ever. A personal favourite. A dialog on how lazy Malay students are, how useless, how blur they are. The statements itself already makes this film as one of the best.

One famous France male( Godard that is) once said, when he gave Lynch's Wild At Heart the award of the best film at Cannes many years ago"The first few minutes (of the film) are the best I ever seen, so why bother to continue watching?" Something like that. Same goes with 3 Budak Melayu.

Yes with that honest statement about how lazy our students are, This is more importan opening line than American Beauty's intro line "..... My name is Lester Burnham . Less than a year, I'll be dead" or Bravehearts "....... I shall tell u about William Wallce. Historian from England will called me a liar. But histories are written by those who hang heroes", or any other brilliant line opener.3 Budak Melayu line opener falls into that category. A dialog that is shakes u up when u heard it first time..

But of course it takes a guts to say something like that. And as Malay student themselves, its kinda give green light for the production on 3 Budak Melayu to say the most brilliant first few minutes...that malay student is...... Only they can say that and get away with it.

So why keep on shooting when the story should just end there?

No sir, it got to be more than just that, not just their ordinary short film title.

It has to be in a full lenght. A feature film. A digital feature film nevertheless.

With RM15K, this is the first feature film made by a local university students.

So a mat Fit, an Ah Long who suggest they make a porn movie, a jawa boy should come in between and fit the whole story. Imagine 8 1/2 meets Ferris Bueller Days off. No just kidding.

If the first intro seems convincing, their next journey not.

kalau mereka sanggup bersiap kemas cantik untuk makan dikenduri orang lain, kita tak ditunjukkan pun betapa laparnya mereka?

Kalau mereka desperate sangat untuk membuat filem, kita tak nampak pun paksaan dari pensyarahnya( yang hanya kita nampak beberapa adegan pensyarah menyalah guna kuasa)

Kalau mereka desperate sangat untuk membuat filem, mana prosesnya?

Kalau mereka desperate sangat untuk membuat filem, mana ending shot nya? mana ideanya dan apa kisahnya?

Dan banyak lagi...

Kenapa tak develop itu semua sebagai basic structure untuk storyline?

.....Tapi itu formula filem moden lama; give an excuse for a reason, then built up a character, a story from that. We might be fed up with the same formula. So 3 Budak Melayu come and go and do things for no reason. Of course this is not the first movie that play with that kind of storytelling. A postmodern works? postmodern is a big word but might close to it.

Ada beberapa babak membuatkan aku tertanya kenapa perlunya kewujudan babak tersebut? Especially tentang babak yang menccertikan tentang pensyarah yang membuat filem....ianya kelihatan lebih kepada personal attack on somebody.

I dont think that scene is necessary.

3 Budak Melayu mula nampak "meriah" dengan kemasukan Sham Mat Pit dan Azim as Ah Long . its a good sign cause all the lead actor in this movie, (except for Zaidi Omar dan Liza Othman of course) are acting students. And theyre doing they job well.

Aizam is doing well at narrating the whole film and as actor hes doing the best he can by just being himself. Cuma Yaya dan Arjun nampak sedikti terpencil. Kalau mereka juga diberi peuang untuk menjadi 'lead' dengan narrate sedikit babak akhir, sudah tentu lebih menarik. Eceh. kalau dialog mereka dipanjang lebarkan aku rasa sudah tentu mereka akan lebih mampu untuk menonjol ,dengan karakter2 natural mereka.

Well anyway,The poster is nice in my opinion. 3 Budak Melayu yang memilih untuk membelakangi audience mereka seolah-olah takut atau malu untuk memeperkenalkan diri sendiri. Not a conventional idea but it works here. Tho its not original idea (Forrest Gump anyone?) 3 malay students looking at their own faith (in a words writeen by others? hehe)


Walau apa pun, tahniah kepada semua produksi 3 Budak Melayu ini. Its a good and brave effort.Diharapkan semua pelajar boleh menyinar diluar nanti, sama seperti bersinarnya subang ditelinga sang Pengarah Filem ini ketika Press Conference di Finas tempoh hari.

*3 Budak Melayu adalah produksi honor showcase pelajar-pelajar filem Fakulti Teknologi Kreatif dan Artistik. Insyallah akan ditayangkan dipawagam digital yang berhampiran dengan anda.

Seraphine

Biasanya inilah yang berlaku ketika aku cuba menonton filem France di pawagam.

"Seraphine? Serapine?" Aku mula gelisah macamana sebutan yang betul harus aku tuturkan. Kalau aku silap sebut nanti budak kaunter tu gelak kat aku. Its easy with Amelie, But Seraphine....
Ye biasanya itulah yang berlaku....And since the only French words I know is comse comsa, others French language makes me tremble.
Maka aku pun memberanikan diri pergi ke kaunter. Budka yang jaga kaunter tu kurus dengan tagname bernama Aziz. Dia tersenyum. Aku pun membuka mulut.
“Seraphine satu. Pukul 7 malam” kata aku confident. Seraphine. Aku sebut ‘pine’ tu macam ‘pine’ darah. Macam orang English sebut Seraphine.Nasib baik budak kaunter tu tak gelakkan aku kerana hanya selepas menonton filem itu barulah aku tahu,Seraphine ejanya SEGHAPIN!” ‘Sera’ dengan Idgham Maalghunnah dan Pine..adalah pin, macam pin baju.

Ada beberapa filem yang aku tak boleh kata tidak (means kena tonton) 1) Filem yang diarahkan oleh pengarah kegemaran....... 2) Filem yang dilakonkan oleh pelakon kesukaan...... 3) Filem yang berdasarkan biografi........ 4) Filem yang berkenaan pelukis, baik biografi, docu ataupun total fiction. I cannot say no to this film. Seraphine is about a struggling artst yang akhirnya menjadi gila. How can I say no to this film? Even van Gogh sendiri would line up to watch his contemporary if hes still alive. And one more thing, shes a naive artist. Gosh I'll skip Wolverine and a thousands of Bohsia , and i straight to que to buy tickets for Seghapin.
.
How to rate this film? I have no idea. Premisnya mudah sahaja,filem ini dibuat untuk dunia tahu yang dulu pernah ada seorang pelukis naive bernama Seraphine. Pada awal abad ke 20. Itu sahaja. Takde surpirse. Takde effect. Paling kuat pun ianya boleh menuntun persembahan lakonan baik dari pelakon utamanya.
Jadi aku rasa tak adil untuk memberi bintang atau thumbs up pada filem sebegini bagi aku.
Not like Ghandi or anything else. Filem ini bergerak mudah dari satu bahagian ke bahagian yang lain tanpa ada sebarang kejutan (dari sinopsis ia telah menyatakan Seraphine akan jadi gila)

Kekuatan filem ini adalah seharusnya ia memberi inspiration kepada penonton.Especially struggling painter like me. The idea is its inspire people to keep on working and working and just be honest with yourself, with your arts. And if u have talent, one day people will recognize u.
And Seraphine is one lucky woman kerana dia bekerja sebagai amah di rumah yang didiami oleh Uhde, seorang pengumpul seni dan gallery owner yang mampu menghargai karya-karya avant garde, naive ini. A state of luck or faith?.

Peranan WilhelmUhde sebagai art collector juga menarik untuik diperkatakan. It sugegst that as an art collector, kita seharusnya bergerak mencari artist (mengetuk pintu rumah artist itu sendiri) dan bukannya hanya duduk melenggang kaki digaleri menunggu artist/pelukis sendiri datang menyembah kamu.

Seraphine probably the orginal naive artist. Dia di ‘discovered” pada sama masa ketika Henry Rosseau mula dikenali dalam lukisan-lukisan naivenya 9atau Modern primitive according to Uhdel. Maka adalah penting untuk pengkarya filem Peranchis yang rasa mereka bertanggungjawab untuk mengetengahkan nama Seraphine ini dimata dunia untuk membuat filem mengenainya.
Seraphine for me is an original artist. Not a fake one neither plastic one.Dia melukis bukannya kerana dia terpengaruh dengan karya-karya lain dalam bilik Uhde, dan bukan juga kerana itu adalah escapistnya bila kesunyian (Dia melukis sambil menyanyinya lagu kemegahan kepada tuhannya...ya obses pada Tuhan adalah inspirasi utama kepada pelukis-pelukis2 naive atau outsider terutamanya di Amerika Syarikat dan di Amerika Utara) . tetapi Seraphine memang original artist lama dahulu sejak sebelum dia mula melukis. Dia seorang inviromentalist yang setia. Sukakan kepada alam.Dan dia juga selalu bercakap dengan pokok hence shes really artist.
And by being mad just put her in the same category as van Gogh and others crazy people. Are they really crazy? yes they are. The price of being different and genius and highly talented. And for that honor, they make a movie out of her.

Naive art atau Raw Art atau Outsider Art atau Art brut adalah cabang seni yang menjadi pilhan aku sejak beberapa tahun kebelakangan ini. Selain dari Henry Rossuea, Dubuffet, Adolf Wolfi, Merati, Cy Twombly,Picaso (karya-karya akhirnya sebelum dia mati) ada beberapa nama penting lagi dalam seni naive ini. Dalam seni catan tempatan pun , naive art menjadi semakin popular sejak kebelakangan ini dengan Yusof gajah dan beberapa pelukis perempuan muda yang lain yang giat berkarya dan semakin diterima oleh peminat seni catan tempatan.
tapi memang sukar untuk mengenal pasti kesemua pelukis naive kerana jumlahnya yang banyak. Mereka didiscovered hampir setiap hari dan jumlah ini semakin bertambah setiap tahun. Banyak juga pelukis yang mula dikenal pasti hasil catan mereka setelah beberapa tahun mereka mati. Seraphine adalah salah seorang dari mereka..

Seraphine just won cesar Award for best film this year. Best Actress for Yolande Moreau, Best script, cinematography, best costume dan...err banyak lagi sial.

Now, if the government (our goverment that is...our outority) have budgets to make film, I suggest we spend it on a biografy movie like this. We could make movies out of Latif Mohidin’s life (should make interesting on cause as a child he conidered as a prodigy) , or Syed Ahmad Jamal or Chuah Teng Teng, Ibrahim Huseein, Redza Piyadasa,. Or Jailani or Wong Hoy Cheung or ...gosh so many names of locals important painter/artist. No fancy stuff, no extravagant set and such, just shoot it as it is, with great acting it will be just worth made.

Pengajaran dari filem Seraphine:
1) jangan under estimate nilai dan penghayatan estetik orang yang tak belajar seni, terutama dari orang bawahan anda, hatta orang gaji yang tua sekalipun.
2) Art collector harus berani memperkenalkan karya-karya jenis baru kepada kontemporari audience.
3) Alam adalah sumber yang baik untuk inspirasi dalam berkarya. Eceh.
4) Kalau taknak bayar duit sewa rumah, jalan laju-laju bila melintasi rumah tuan punya rumah.
5) menjadi sunyi adalah sebahagian dari rangkumi kehidupan sesiapa sahaja yang mahu menjadi artist, maka mereka harus berani melepasi saat-saat getir itu, kerana jika kamu French, suatu hari nanti pasti ada pengarah filem yang akan mengarahkan kisah hidup kamu.

Kamal Sabran's Space Gambus Experiment: Between Human Rights movement and Sound from Outerspace.

It always interesting to follow kamal’s progress as an artist, as a musician.
Cause I was there to see he develop from a grunge kid to a devoted ambience minimalist. I was there with Kamal. Sitting at class of 1995 and we talk about music, mostly about Kurt Cobain and Grunge and all. Then 10 years later when I met him back, he already leave the raw sounds of Gurnge and try new different style of music.yes like Robert Zimmerman said "those who not busy being born are busy dying" means we must move. And kamal has progess alot asince that summer of 1995.

Theres is nothing kamal wont try to experiment. video experimental, sound experimental, poligamy, mud wrestling, psychoanalysis, Primal scream, Yoko Ono Minimalist style, suicide bomb and food not bomb. And yes Rahmat Haroun the hippies poet is his friend....long before he get tatooed !
And the latest result is here..he called it as experimental electro acoustic soundscape. And the name of the band is Space Gambus Experiment.

Space Gambus Experiment's are:

Zulkifli Ramli - Gambus/Oud

Kamal Sabran - Electroacoustic

Heres are tracks list;
TRACKS:

1)Pengembara Cahaya

2)Dari Dalam Kalbu

3)7 Ruang Kosong

4)Penawar

5)Sonik al-Kosmik

6)Gerhana

7)Pulang Kakanda Bulan

This is no ordinary music.The sound is taken from orbit. Yes u read me right. + the track contains real signals from outer space (Jupiter's radio wave)captured by the artist with tremendous helps by a group of scientist in National Space Agency Malaysia.

Kamal always have interested with cosmic idea and Einsten relativity. For him science and art is one thing while sex and pornography is another thing. a silence is not a silence. Theres always music in between. And in this case, it could comes from outer space. And when a signal is blend with music, heres what you got. With influence from Portishead, Bjork, Radiohead’s Kid A, Sigur Ros and even Lori Anderson, Space gambus Experiment brought another new dimension to its kind of music.
So its not too much if to say that this music collaboration he produce is like science meets traditional. Or science meets the ..gambus. As I said, this is no ordinary music. So when u listen to this music and u caught a glimpse of an alien voice trying to contact us, that’s not accident. it could happening. And this is not science fiction, the music is real.

Of course Kamal is no Jean Michel Jarre or even say Vangelis. But his one of few local artist that are not afraid to expermient with things and hes eager for your opinion. Kamal is like a tiger in a cage waiting to leap onto you. Or in this case..hes like the orbit sound from space that waiting to be heard (pergh! Gila ah ayat aku untuk ko ni Kamal)
Listen it with open heart. feels the ambience surrounding u. feels the enigma of unending space. A space that is lighter than a light and space that revolve around us. The Quantum leap of metaphysical that opens the mystery of human kind....
A good listen either u BN member or PKR member or Komunist or Socialist or Capitalist. (finally)

This music sounds good when u doing your charity with Human Right movement or giving soup to homeless person on a Sunday Morning.

If u want to listen to the songs, clik to Kamal Sabran’s blog. The link? Oh he’ll be the first one to comment here. Clik to his blog. Its free.

Tiada Esok Bagimu (No Tomorrow)

Ada beberapa benda yang buat excited this weeks. Apart from ManU menang atas Porto (ye aku support English team) , apart from book signing di Pesta Buku KL di PWTC on 26th April ini, apart from aku hampir (sekali lagi aku gunakan perkataan hampir) berjaya menamatkan translate Brechts play …ianya adalah kerana Jins Shamsudin movie will be shown at TV this 19 April Sunday 9 pm kat Astro. Tiada Esok Bagimu. Atau dalam bahasa Inggerisnya bertajuk..No Tomorrow (James Bond Brosnan ciplak tajuk filem ini dan namakan filemnya Tomorrow never Dies). The best of all Esok trilogy. For a personal reason, Yeah ini filem melodrama feveret aku. (tak percaya sudah!)

Aku rasa mungkin hampir 10 tahun sejak kali terakhir aku menonton filem ini. dan sekarang aku tak sabar-sabar nak duduk depan TV. Dan sekarang RTM takde tayangan gambar pada malam Jumaat untuk menayangkan filem2 Melayu lama. Harapan aku untuk menonton filem-filem melayu klasik hanyalah pada tayangan gambar pada hari Ahad di TV3. yang ni aku selalu miss jugak sebab aku sibuk berjalan-jalan di Amcorp Mall ketika itu. So bila sekali sekala filem seperti ini ditayangkan di TV, aku tiada pilihan lain kecuali….. (awal-awal aku dah bagitahu Jaja tentang date dan waktunya supaya tak berebut TV dgn dia nanti hehe)

Pada anak-anak yang lahir pada tahun 80an dan 90an. Kalau yang belum menonton filem ini,cubalah tengok Tiada Esok Bagimu ini untuk merasakan gegar gempitanya kehappening Malaysia pada akhir 70an itu.. Kalau tak minat ceritanya takpe,layan set dan interior filemnya pun dah cukup memberahikan. Kalau itu pun, layan spek besar Noor Kumalasari tu dan fikir mana aku nak beli spek macam itu. Kalau itu pun tak membuatkan kamu ghairah, tengok Mahmud June berlakon dihotel sambil memujuk Noor Kumalasari.Atau...layan Yusof Haslam yang melakonkan karakter seorang abang yang baik.
Kalau itupun tak mampu membuatkan kamu seronok, tengok jambang Jins Shamsudin yang ditrim cantik itu.
Kalau itu pun tak mampu menarik perhatian kamu semua, layanlah lagu Salamiah Hassah yang mendayu-dayu ini.
Kalau itu pun tak menarik minat, tak tahulah aku..(pelik juga kalau Melayu tak suka dengan melodrama? Bukanlah seisi hidup melayu itu sendiri penuh dengan unsur-unsur mellow? Hehe aku pernah terdengar seseorang berkata begini)

Aku tak nak analysed film ini. Itu tak penting bagi aku. Filem-filem begini aku harus layan tanpa ada kritikal analisis padanya. Tak adil bagi aku.

Bila manusia perlu merasa untuk berperasaan, dia tidak perlu bertanya untuk apa dan dari mana perasaan itu datang
- somebody

Enough said. Or in another words, malam Ahad ni....gua nak layan nangis ok.

SEMAN: TOO AVANT GARDE OR JUST LUCKY?

Alkisah maka menontonlah aku filem Seman or Surman or ‘Sir, Man’ arahan Mansur Puteh di Puncak Perdana itu, Tengah tayangan filem Seman yang setengahnya ada macam babak-babak dalam filem-filem Z Lokman atau flem filem U Wei haji Shaari a colleague whisper to me “Aku tak faham kenapa filem ini diangkat”katanya berbisik. Aku yang menghulurkan telinga hanya tersenyum. Kata aku “Dont u ask me. Kau yang belajar filem. kau yang patut explain kat aku” kata aku ketawa.

Prinsip aku dalam review/kritikan/ aprisiasi seni adalah mudah: Bila menilai karya seni ,Buang yang keruh ambil yang jernih. Means I only absord the beauty while the bad, the ugly, the uncertainty,just left it behind.

The jernih first.
Seman overall is not a bad movie and Mansur Puteh is not a stupid director anyway. The title cult is probably well deserve. Forget about the bad lighting, the bad acting, the bad color and so on and so forth. I take a lot at the whole movie itself and I come up with a conclusion that something somewhere in there remains….cult heh .The movie itself is a haunting experience (but is it in a good way or in a bad way I cant tell myself either)
Seman puzzle the viewers. For good or bad it left u wandering whatta fuck is going on. …but wait a minute, that’s the keruh one. Ok ok think positive man, think positive! this is Mansur Puteh’s film we talking about anyway ok.
The plot is complex……err not really.. Its about a man names Seman working at a advertising company. Try to fulfill his job with an idea of a great Melaka (nothing extraordinary about that right?) And in the mean time, he try to get a girl, a school girl. Then we been shown his friendship with his small brother. Then he go to Japan. And when he get home his brother die.In a plane to someplace he meets a girl who later will be his gf. And blab la blab la bla he threw his script. Theres goes the end of Malaysia’s most sacred movie. Our own Citizen Kane(?) (and Minah Manja at the same time) Characther comes and go without early introduction(breakin the rules). Scene changing places tho the actor in the same conversation. Puzzle like Ulysses. No? ok its unfair to put Ulysses as comparison but its….confusing. I mean like …what?
That part when Seman buangkan air kebadannya its quiet funny and so spontaneous we didn’t expect it coming (sometimes I think since Mansur Puteh so hilarious live, I suggest that Seman should be as funny as him outside) . Its so funny (not so funny as funny I mean but that’s the only part in the film when everything humour attempt seems to blend together)
Then I enjoy very much the part where Seman put big glasses to welcome the girl. That’s very genius. (dammit! I wish I could think of that)
Then I enjoy the credit title part where all names written in a school book with pencil.
Basically walaupun Seman chaos, tetapi ianya banyak diimbangi oleh 2 unsur repetitious back to back, samada melalui scene, perlambangan, shoot dan sebagainya yang membuatkan file mini seimbang. For example;
1) Unsur pemakanan tempatan
1 dengan Maruku dan 1 lagi dengan cencaluk.

2) 2 lawak bodoh oleh Seman ketik bertemu awek
1 ketika dikapal terbang (bila dia tertumpah air) dan yang kedua dihadapan pagar dengan gigantic spek.

3) 2 kali buang skrip dan duit jepun.

4) 2 kali minat awek

5) 2 kali scene di kedai menjual kain

6) 2 kali berjumpa India

Dan banyak lagi kot…

The Keruh one
No komen. Tak baik mencari kesalahan orang.

Kenapa ini dikategorikan sebagai filem islam I have no idea. Tak ada corak2 or pattern dalamnya yang membezakan filem mini dengan filem Melayu yang lain ketika itu sehingga boleh diletakkan sebagai filem Islam? Adakah sebba ad babak memasak ketupat seisi keluarga boleh dikatakan sebagai filem Islam? Atau konsep keseimbangan tadi ? I have no idea. Don’t ask the director, they want to remains their work as mystery, kata neruda dalam Il Postino.

DO I like it? Yeah I do. I enjoy it. Just like I enjoy Freedy Got Fingered, Screwed, jackass The Movie, bas Kundoktur, Minah Manja , El Topo, Humane, and even naïve art, Cherry Samba’s work, Cy Twombly, Dubufet and so on. But I wouldn’t called that as a great film. (discuss)
Avant garde? Maybe but hes doing nothing new. Nothing shoking here that never been done before. Almost escapism too me. experimental? maybe. Absurd? yeah.
Tokoh perfileman tempatan? Better find somebody else. Not a personal argue but I think for tokoh we need a very positive leader here..not someone who cynically rambling on others filmmaker when talking about himself.
Old timer seems to hailed this movie. Perople who…old. U know old?. While young people (like me hahaha) and some of my collegue still confuse why his peers raised this movie abovecloud nine. I mean…we’re all too understoond the concept of conceptual, the concept of all the boring technique in movies . we have watch the difficult movie too u know but still not get it why seman is so…..say important. It just another experimental movie with bad lighting to me.
Is it cult? It is. But cult is like tempoyak man (or cencaluk in this case) . The more u keep it the better its taste.And I do like tempoyak man. Or like wine. Makin lama makin bernilai dia.
Ok ok…maybe its really ahead of its time. ..But what time? Mungkin ianya mendahului zaman. Tapi zaman apa?
In this digital and advance age, with things like LCD, PLASMA, DVD, Blue Ray all the technology that makes visual art works sharp, clean …pixel things, Seman will remains cult because it different from the rest. Its ugly and low key will keep his place as the cultest (haha cultest) film in local art scene.

But at the end..yeah What do I know about film? I just want I want to off and watch Penanggal Ilmu Teluh again.

Verdict: Its like the bright blogger student said: "Psuedo Intellectual!" It sum up the whole experience of watching Seman that night. So which part of it that makes mansur Puteh can be consider as great, brilliant? By the way he talks maybe. So that’s why, for better or worse he have to kutuk all this filmmaker from P Ramlee and Yasmin Ahmad and Satyajiv Ray just for others to notice that hes different from his peers. different here means hes the best among them. That’s an easy trick, all you have to do is to have a big mouth.
Ok so ‘pseudo Inttellectual’. Means maybe he is really genius or maybe he just lucky people praise his works. See in 1986 when Argentina meets England is quarter final of World Cup, the Argentina captain first score with his famous hand of God. But of course he knows, to have reputation as one of the best player in the world he have to come out with another shot. Few minutes later
he score the best goal the world even seen just to cover up his hand of gol’s goal.
Mansur Puteh hasnt yet score his best goal. Harap-harap bila Malaysia dihujani salji nanti Mansur Puteh mampu menunjukkan.....well nevermind.

Ok ‘Pseudo Inttelectual’. Save by the bell. Mansur Puteh needs more than one movie to convince people that hes really the diamond in local film industry or he just Our infant terrible. Lucky I mean.

But on a second thought......Seman rocks. And it left me puzzle why i said that. :)