Creativity Limited?

Talking about the disparity between passion and ignorance. Malaysian made products, our very own Malaysian film products to be more precise. I mean, who are we kidding? Right from the storylines, scripts, acting, directing, promoting, you name it, a very sad scenario. After the Golden Era (P.Ramlee and Co.) there’s nothing much that we can be proud of. Don't really like to bitch but that's the whole truth. No doubt some movies hit it big, millions of ringgit reaped, but that's not the right scale to use. How many countries have we penetrated? For God's sake, we can't even attract our neighbouring countries, like Indonesia and Thailand, to support our filming industry. And yet, their films make it big here as well as the rest of the region. Even Singapore is doing better than us! We got no excuse. Personally, I think we are capable. And that's the saddest part.

The main problem with our filmmakers is that, they just don't think out of the box, in this case, out of the country. Very short sighted and narrow-minded indeed. Yes, Gerak Khas The Movie hit it big in Malaysia, but why didn't Datuk Yusof Haslam sell the movie in Indonesia? Senario The Movie series, made it too. Same thing, only jaguh kampung. And please don't ever mention the so-called famous director by the name of prof. madya something! To me, he's the leader of the cult that is destroying our film industry. If there were so successful in Malaysia, why can't they make it outside as well? To me, these filmmakers only think about Malaysian viewers, or rather the Malays. “Less work, no need to think much and hopefully make quick money” kind of mentality. But how is this going to lift our film industry to soaring heights? True, we did win a handful of international film awards from time to time, but have you seen Puntianak Harum Sundal Malam I and II, the one that got Maya Karin an award? I almost had a heart attack watching that movie. Not because of the bloody puntianak, but the storyline, script, acting…my God! Horrendous! Pathetic hantu scenes. Sometimes, I feel these local filmmakers think that the audience is stupid enough to accept such dismal scenes and acting. Puh-lease don't insult our intelillegence! Haven’t the filmmaker seen, Ju-On, The Eye or Nang Nak? Bloody scary!!! Neighboring countries can do these classics, why can’t we just emulate them? Not taking anything away from Maya Karin, but how the Puntianak Sundal series won an award for her, I don’t even want to know.

There’s still hope though. With the likes of Yasmin Ahmads and Afldin Shaukis (though, I think Afdlin’s storyline needs to be refined a bit), there is still light at the end of the tunnel. I believe these people have passion in what they do. The obsession of producing good, quality movies. And I really hope they will inspire more talents out there. We need these people to save our film industry during these dark ages.

In short, passion helps, ignorance sucks!