Susuk grossed RM865,000 in its first four days of release. Alhamdulillah.
It was the second most-watched film in Malaysia over the weekend, after The Mummy 3.
On its opening day (Thursday) it grossed RM145,000. We thought it would drop the next day, which happened to be the opening ceremony of the Olympics. But it instead increased to RM165,000. Saturday was much better: RM276,000.
We expected another drop the next day, because conventional wisdom would have it that more people watch films on Saturday compared to Sunday. But we were pleasantly surprised when Sunday brought in RM275,000, a drop-off of not even 0.5%.
This is a stronger opening than any of the past five Malaysian films to be released.
Not many people expected it to do this well, especially after the best-selling Malay newspaper Harian Metro titled its early review 'Tak Faham Jalan Cerita,' and another newspaper Kosmo accused it of being a sleazy exploitation flick – and made me out to be some kind of pimp. But the fact that it has consistently pulled people in shows that folks are not that confused or, erm, offended.
No, it won't break any box-office records, even by the standards of local films. But a least Grand Brilliance, which spent RM1.23 million on it, won't be too embarrassed. And it has generated quite a lot of discussion (some people really hate it!) which to me is even better.
So thanks :-)
Monday, 11 August 2008
Sunday, 10 August 2008
Deleted scene #1
We had to cut out many scenes from the film because we didn't realise that a 97-page screenplay would end up being a first edit that was much longer than two hours.
This scene, a cameo by Jaclyn Victor, takes place right after Suzana lustily eats steak for lunch – and just before Soraya arrives backstage ... where she recognises the TV host Yasmin Yusoff. It would have been the film's only English-language scene.
More deleted scenes will follow!
This scene, a cameo by Jaclyn Victor, takes place right after Suzana lustily eats steak for lunch – and just before Soraya arrives backstage ... where she recognises the TV host Yasmin Yusoff. It would have been the film's only English-language scene.
More deleted scenes will follow!
Thursday, 7 August 2008
Second essay received
It is by Andrew Ng, a world specialist in Gothic literature, and the title is "A Cultural History of the Pontianak Films in Malaysia." It is over 10,000 words long, with pictures, and might end up hogging 40 pages in the book :-)
Woo hoo!
Woo hoo!
I still have not been to Brazil, alas
But at least there's an article about me in Portuguese! This was on the occasion of my 6horts (2002) screening at a film festival there.
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
The dark knight returns
DI BALIK MALAYSIA: Dari Majapahit ke Putrajaya by Farish A. Noor (ZI Publications, 2008, 226 pages)
SOME scholars believe that Homer (the Greek, not the Simpson) was actually several different people. I sometimes wonder the same about Farish A. Noor.
This is not to suggest that he’s schizophrenic, but I don’t see how anyone can be so prolific. Those of us who need to lie down with a wet towel over our foreheads after choosing just the right emoticon for an SMS can feel only awe at his vast energy and erudition.
Not a day seems to go by without him swooping down to correct a wrong. Batman has nifty gadgets inspired by S & M paraphernalia, but Farish has his arsenal of words and references. His crusade is (to paraphrase another superhero’s motto) for truth, justice and the Malaysian way.
Last week, we looked at his 840-page tome on PAS. Now let us celebrate his first Malay-language collection. True, most of the pieces are actually translated from his earlier articles in the books The Other Malaysia and From Majapahit to Putrajaya but the fact that they are now in the national language is significant.
(Equally significant is an essay here that argues that we don’t actually have a national language, in that there is no lingua franca that we can comfortably call our own. But I shall let you read that yourself).
It is apposite that this book is dedicated to the memory of Rustam A Sani as there is some batonpassing here. With all due respect, Rustam’s stature as a public intellectual was slightly compromised by his party allegiance (to PKR) later in his life. While Farish puts himself beyond the reach of many Malaysians because he writes mainly in English.
It is stark proof (as if any were needed) of the cowardice of the Malay-language media that his articles are not printed there but are instead translated for Sin Chew Jit Poh.
Although there is no such thing as a dumb language, a language risks being dumbed down if different ideas are not introduced into it. Just like Uthaya Sankar SB, Farish insists on the term Bahasa Malaysia because he sees the potential for the language to be truly inclusive.
The word “crossroads” is often used by Malaysian political pundits but Farish’s speciality as historian and social scientist is to look at the road not taken.
Specifically: How did the concept of ‘Malaysia’ get to be hijacked by greedy politicians who often seek support only by championing their own ethnic and communal interests? How did we get placed in neat little boxes and told to be wary of one another? Where are the voices (you can call them ‘the Other’ or ‘the subaltern’) excluded from the official narrative?
He argues that ‘race’ itself was a convenient colonial administrative tool that has been further exacerbated by the post-colonial elite. The 1970s were a particularly virulent time, because Umno and started engaging in a race to out- Muslim and out-Malay the other.
So now we have come to a system with a very bloated and expensive religious bureaucracy that seems to devote more time to skodeng (peeping tom) vigilantism than issues of greater national importance; and where we, the citizens, are constantly reminded of the superficial differences rather than deep commonalities between us.
These differences, once regulated and codified, then become so entrenched that we can’t imagine looking at ourselves and neighbours in any other way. It is this paralysing inertia that he wants us to break out of. Some of his prescriptions are surprising indeed: Read the second half of Hikayat Hang Tuah and figure out why certain aspects of that mythical hero never got acted out by M. Nasir.
Trawl the Net and you will find much hostility (often anonymous) to the ideals of progressive liberalism espoused by Farish. (Well, his type of sarcastic exasperation is sometimes very easy bait for hate-mail). I thus look forward to the discussions about this book.
Di Balik Malaysia is handsomely produced but the translation is a bit stiff; the sentences often still sound English. It should also have included some of the light-hearted articles such as the ones on Ning Baizura or Ibrahim Ali, two personalities who exist to give us cheer. But there is more to come, I am sure: the various ‘Malaysias’ are a gift that will keep on giving.
(Malay Mail, 7 August 2008)
SOME scholars believe that Homer (the Greek, not the Simpson) was actually several different people. I sometimes wonder the same about Farish A. Noor.
This is not to suggest that he’s schizophrenic, but I don’t see how anyone can be so prolific. Those of us who need to lie down with a wet towel over our foreheads after choosing just the right emoticon for an SMS can feel only awe at his vast energy and erudition.
Not a day seems to go by without him swooping down to correct a wrong. Batman has nifty gadgets inspired by S & M paraphernalia, but Farish has his arsenal of words and references. His crusade is (to paraphrase another superhero’s motto) for truth, justice and the Malaysian way.
Last week, we looked at his 840-page tome on PAS. Now let us celebrate his first Malay-language collection. True, most of the pieces are actually translated from his earlier articles in the books The Other Malaysia and From Majapahit to Putrajaya but the fact that they are now in the national language is significant.
(Equally significant is an essay here that argues that we don’t actually have a national language, in that there is no lingua franca that we can comfortably call our own. But I shall let you read that yourself).
It is apposite that this book is dedicated to the memory of Rustam A Sani as there is some batonpassing here. With all due respect, Rustam’s stature as a public intellectual was slightly compromised by his party allegiance (to PKR) later in his life. While Farish puts himself beyond the reach of many Malaysians because he writes mainly in English.
It is stark proof (as if any were needed) of the cowardice of the Malay-language media that his articles are not printed there but are instead translated for Sin Chew Jit Poh.
Although there is no such thing as a dumb language, a language risks being dumbed down if different ideas are not introduced into it. Just like Uthaya Sankar SB, Farish insists on the term Bahasa Malaysia because he sees the potential for the language to be truly inclusive.
The word “crossroads” is often used by Malaysian political pundits but Farish’s speciality as historian and social scientist is to look at the road not taken.
Specifically: How did the concept of ‘Malaysia’ get to be hijacked by greedy politicians who often seek support only by championing their own ethnic and communal interests? How did we get placed in neat little boxes and told to be wary of one another? Where are the voices (you can call them ‘the Other’ or ‘the subaltern’) excluded from the official narrative?
He argues that ‘race’ itself was a convenient colonial administrative tool that has been further exacerbated by the post-colonial elite. The 1970s were a particularly virulent time, because Umno and started engaging in a race to out- Muslim and out-Malay the other.
So now we have come to a system with a very bloated and expensive religious bureaucracy that seems to devote more time to skodeng (peeping tom) vigilantism than issues of greater national importance; and where we, the citizens, are constantly reminded of the superficial differences rather than deep commonalities between us.
These differences, once regulated and codified, then become so entrenched that we can’t imagine looking at ourselves and neighbours in any other way. It is this paralysing inertia that he wants us to break out of. Some of his prescriptions are surprising indeed: Read the second half of Hikayat Hang Tuah and figure out why certain aspects of that mythical hero never got acted out by M. Nasir.
Trawl the Net and you will find much hostility (often anonymous) to the ideals of progressive liberalism espoused by Farish. (Well, his type of sarcastic exasperation is sometimes very easy bait for hate-mail). I thus look forward to the discussions about this book.
Di Balik Malaysia is handsomely produced but the translation is a bit stiff; the sentences often still sound English. It should also have included some of the light-hearted articles such as the ones on Ning Baizura or Ibrahim Ali, two personalities who exist to give us cheer. But there is more to come, I am sure: the various ‘Malaysias’ are a gift that will keep on giving.
(Malay Mail, 7 August 2008)
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
The second controversy?
This article seems to imply that Susuk received 8 nominations because I am on the jury of the same film festival.
Cis! Fitnah!
Full disclosure: I am indeed on the jury.
But for the categories of short films and documentaries.
And I can assure you that I did not have anything to do with the five finalists in both categories. For documentaries, they are: Making The Cut, The Woodsmiths, Kami Yang Disyaki, Restoring Merdeka and The Perak Man. And for shorts, they are: Hasrat, Tiffin, Burp, Eyefinger and Kopitiam Kurang Manis.
I had nothing to do with the feature-film jury (and don't even know who some of them are).
Sheesh.
Cis! Fitnah!
Full disclosure: I am indeed on the jury.
But for the categories of short films and documentaries.
And I can assure you that I did not have anything to do with the five finalists in both categories. For documentaries, they are: Making The Cut, The Woodsmiths, Kami Yang Disyaki, Restoring Merdeka and The Perak Man. And for shorts, they are: Hasrat, Tiffin, Burp, Eyefinger and Kopitiam Kurang Manis.
I had nothing to do with the feature-film jury (and don't even know who some of them are).
Sheesh.
Sunday, 3 August 2008
8 nominations
Susuk has received eight nominations for the upcoming Festival Filem Malaysia.
The nominees are:
Best Actor (Adlin Aman Ramlie)
Best Cinematography (Daven Raghavan)
Best Music Score (Hardesh Singh)
Best Production Design (Kek Ting Lam)
Best Sound Design (Add Audio)
Most Promising Actress (Diana Rafar)
Best Costume Design (Mohd Zaini Abdul Rahman)
Best Poster (yes!)
Unfortunately the film could not be nominated in 4 key categories: Story, Screenplay, Directing and Editing because the FFM rules state that the nominees have to be Malaysian citizens. My co-writer and co-director Naeim Ghalili is American, and our editor Zalee is Singaporean. Similarly, Sepi this year and Cinta last year could not be nominated for Best Director because Kabir Bhatia is Indian.
Oh well. Congratulations to all the nominees! The results will be announced Saturday night.
The nominees are:
Best Actor (Adlin Aman Ramlie)
Best Cinematography (Daven Raghavan)
Best Music Score (Hardesh Singh)
Best Production Design (Kek Ting Lam)
Best Sound Design (Add Audio)
Most Promising Actress (Diana Rafar)
Best Costume Design (Mohd Zaini Abdul Rahman)
Best Poster (yes!)
Unfortunately the film could not be nominated in 4 key categories: Story, Screenplay, Directing and Editing because the FFM rules state that the nominees have to be Malaysian citizens. My co-writer and co-director Naeim Ghalili is American, and our editor Zalee is Singaporean. Similarly, Sepi this year and Cinta last year could not be nominated for Best Director because Kabir Bhatia is Indian.
Oh well. Congratulations to all the nominees! The results will be announced Saturday night.
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