©The Sun
(Used by permission)
by Benjamin McKay
The emergence of newly independent nation states in the heady aftermath of World
War II coincided with a resurgence in global cinema.
The most iconic art form and entertainment of the 20th century now found itself
serving the spirit of modernism, and in newly emerging nations such as Malaysia,
articulating visions of community and identity in the often contested service of
nation–building. Cinema and nation became inextricably linked.
The emerging academic discipline of Film Studies began to talk about National
Cinemas – collective cinematic achievements that both reflected a nation and
helped to shape and sustain a nation – its history, belief systems, values and
idiosyncratic anomalies.
What do these national cinemas, as opposed to the globally triumphant Hollywood
films, say about a given nation, a people or peoples and their imagined sense of
collectivity and identity? Such a question still provides some controversy in
academic circles, and as I will explore in this brief essay on Malaysian cinema,
tends to raise more questions than it ever succinctly and conclusively manages
to answer.
Films were a potent and enthusiastically consumed part of the Malaysian scene
from very early on in the medium's history. In 1901, at City Hall in Singapore,
audiences vicariously attended the funeral of that most colonial of monarchs,
Queen Victoria, when a screening of that event was first shown, and the emerging
art and entertainment that was cinema became an integral part of the Malay(si)an
cultural landscape in the years that ensued.
Local Malay language films began production in the studios of Singapore during
the 1930s and the industry itself took off with fervour and productivity again
in the years following the Japanese occupation.
The years between 1946 and 1972 are referred to as Era Emas (the golden years)
where in excess of 300 feature films in the Malay language were released,
creating in the process a fully fledged industry and a recognisably unique local
cinematic culture.
An early film – Seruan Merdeka– (1946) directed by B S Rajhans – captured the
sense of post– war idealism and a rare vision of multiculturalism.
In the years that followed leading up to the proclamation of independence, a
variety of contested and sometimes critical visions of post–colonial Malaysia
were explored on screen – a film like Semerah Padi (1956, P. Ramlee) provided a
particular template of possible post–colonial governance that was firmly
informed by notions of traditional Malay culture and systems of order.
The films at this time were produced and released by the Chinese movie moguls of
Shaw Brothers and Cathay Keris, with their uniquely localised version of the
studio system, centred as it was in Singapore.
Many Indian directors helmed these features, but it was a mostly Malay world
that was shown on screen. In time, Malay directors emerged who further explored,
through localised genres, questions of identity, whether ethnic or national.
The iconic P. Ramlee tackled social issues such as class and competing value
systems in his own onscreen version of an emerging nation. Tradition and
modernity; a rising middle class; the city versus the Kampung (village) – all of
these developments were assessed on screen at this time. The uniquely localised
genre of the Kampung film characterised by liberal smatterings of comedy,
melodrama and music, explored the clash of urbanity with traditional values and
modes of living.
There was a cosmopolitan air about a lot of the cinema of this time, especially
as the 1960s dawned. As academic Joel S Kahn has explored recently, no less a
figure than P. Ramlee himself helped to shape the newly–emerging Malay identity.
This legacy is a legacy of possibilities rather than certainties and other great
filmmakers such as Hussein Haniff, M Amin, Jamil Sulong and Salleh Ghani
emerged, among others, to extend the possibilities of Malaysian cinema.
The split with Singapore in 1965 saw a schism in the industry that only
highlighted the growing inadequacies of the studio–based culture, eventually
helping to see its demise by 1972.
During the 1970s, a sporadic film culture emerged in Malaysia that in some ways
reflected the cautious and contested creative terrain that had developed largely
as a response to the political, economic and social fallout following the events
in the country after May 13, 1969.
The cinema of the 70s, 80s and 90s were largely one of exclusion rather than of
possibilities. Some important filmmakers did, however, stand out above the crowd
including such talents as Shuhaimi Baba and U–Wei Haaji Sari who helped to
launch Malaysian cinema into a more golbal viewership base.
But the cinema of this period did not largely extend the possibilities of that
which had preceded it and rather than a truly national cinema, it can be likened
more to a proto–national film culture – ethnically–based rather than a
reflection of a mature and complex nation.
Matters began to take on an exciting sense of change in the new millennium with
the rise of independent filmmakers such as Amir Muhammad, James Lee, Yasmin
Ahmad, Ho Yuhang, Bernard Chauly, Deepak Kumaran Menon and Tan Chui Mui who
again have begun to explore a cinema of possibilities and opportunities. They do
not always speak to the nation per se but their narratives are infused with a
diverse and complex sense of both characterisation and representation.
The cinematic legacy of the golden years was (and is) not without its
detractors, and a similar sense of film being a site of debate and controversy
exists today in the current assessment of the new wave of independent
filmmakers.
National cinema should be a site for reflection and alternative versions of self
and communal identity. The cinema of Malaysia will be a truly national cinema
when it can, with confidence, represent the diversity and complexity of the
nation as a whole – its diversity of peoples, of remembered histories, of
differing values and complex identities.
If the new wave of independent filmmakers begin to cross over into the so–called
mainstream terrain and infuse that cinema with their sense of inclusion and
variety, then I believe we will witness the emergence of a truly mature national
cinema in Malaysia.
Images of the Tunku proclaiming independence with a roar of "Merdeka!" launched
the new nation – one borne as it were on cinema screens.
The cinematic legacy of Malaysia over the past 50 years has reflected and indeed
shaped the historical reality of that time.
It now remains to be seen, as the nation enters its next 50 years of progress
and development, whether the cinema of the nation will embrace the nation's
complexities and rich diversity – its past, its present and its future. Only
then will we be able to say that a mature national cinema has truly developed on
Malaysia's cinema screens, fulfilling perhaps the promise of the golden years of
its cinematic history.
Benjamin McKay is a lecturer in Film Studies at Monash University Malaysia
at Sunway.