everyone has a first love story to tell...
After watching Yasmin Ahmad's "Sepet" and "Gubra", I just have to watch her latest film "Mukhsin", which is a prequel to the former two movies...
This time, we get to explore the protagonist Orked's first love story, when she was a ten-year-old (Sharifah Aryana, who looked just like her older versions!) who fell in love with a twelve-year-old boy, Mukhsin (played by the handsome Mohd Syafie Naswib), in her kampong...
We also find out the fiesty Malay girl's early family influences and her preference for the Chinese language, and understand how she grew up to become the Orked in "Sepet" and "Gubra"...
I like how the director reintroduced her favourite and well-liked actors, Sharifah Amani and Ng Choo Seong (the older Orked and her tragic love, Jason, in "Sepet"), as well as Alan Yun (Jason's brother in "Gubra") as cameos in several scenes. There are also many interrelated links between all these films, done cleverly and subtly, like easter eggs and tidbits for Yasmin Ahmad fans..
Another welcomed fixture in these three movies is the comedic and plus-sized Adibah Noor, who played Orked's family servant Kak Yam. She added much humour and wisdom in her own simple ways...
And Adibah Noor is not only a fun actress to watch, she sings beautifully too! There was a scene in which Orked and her mum (Sharifah Aleya, who ALSO bears an uncanny resemblance to the original Orked), were dancing in the rain while Kak Yam sang to the beats of the Malay Kerongcong...
It was a sweet tender moment (yet highlighting how "different" this family is to their other Malay neighbours), and the song is called...
Hujan (Rain)
by Adibah Noor (with additional backing vocals by Edric Hsu)
I love her original version, but couldn't resist the temptation of adding my own vocal harmonies to create a more kampong folk singing sound to it, just to make it different. Hope it worked! :)
I also love the version of "Hujan" as performed by Yasmin Ahmad's parents, who also wrote this song, at the end of the movie, where they got together with the entire production crew. It was a truly nostalgic kampong (Malay village) moment...
The inclusion of a French song, "Ne Me Quitte Pas" (Don't Leave Me) by Nina Simone, although seemingly strange, added the right amount of sadness and tenderness in a scene where Orked again danced with her parents, and portrayed the emotions of the eventual parting between two very young lovers...
The movie is similar in feel and tone to "Sepet", which is a much more understated and sentimental approach to a simple love story, than "Gubra". I would highly recommend all these three movies (there's an even earlier movie "Rabun" that pre-dates this series!), and would definitely include them in my DVD collection...
Yasmin Ahmad is known for pushing some cross-cultural envelopes, by putting people from different social classes and races and backgrounds together, exploring their relationships, and seeing the chemistry between them...
I just wish more Singaporeans and Malaysians would get to watch her movies and appreciate her strong messages of LOVE and FAITH in them...
But please do so right now, for apparently "Mukhsin" is only running till next Wednesday at GV Cinema Europa at Vivo City...
For those who are interested to know more about this interesting and very intelligent writer, story-teller and filmmaker, please do visit her blog at:
http://yasminthestoryteller.blogspot.com/
And just for the record, if there is a film director I would love to have a chance to work with, it has got to be Yasmin Ahmad...
“The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you,
not knowing how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.”
-Jelalluddin Rumi-