As Suanie Sees It

Last week I was invited (along with some other n00bs) to attend a special preview screening for the movie CINTA. Sounds good, I’d watched the ads for it on TV, one of my favourite local actresses Sharifah Amani is in it, and oh yeah it’s free. Did I mention I love freebies? Uhuh.

But deep within the cheapskate in me, I do enjoy and support the local art/entertainment community. Well, depends also lah. If you ask me to watch Cicakman, terima kasih sajalah. If you ask me to watch Afdlin Shauki’s Sumolah, I might go for it, the only reservations being the soundscape quality which is seriouslyx100 lacking in all of Afdlin’s movies. If you’ve watched any of his movies before, you will know what I mean lah.

I don’t mind watching ‘Puteri Gunung Ledang’ in the cinema again (even though you can’t drink anything for fear of bursting your bladder ‘cos the movie is so damn long). When ‘Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam’ came out, I was tempted to go watch it but for some reason I could not make it. I’m glad I didn’t — that movie defined suckiness (watched it on Astro Ria during Raya). With local productions — movies and plays, it’s a hit or miss thing. I just wish for more of the former than the latter.

Enough with digressing. The point I was going to make was that I enjoy watching and observing the development of our local entertainment industry (which seems to comprise of mostly productions in Malay if they are movies; I wonder if this could be a reason?) and so far they are improving by the minute. Then again I tend to avoid Scenario-type slapstick and I seriously hope my fellow citizens come to their good senses as well.

CINTA:10 stars, 5 love stories, one movie. Maklumlah dapat support daripada Media Prima pasal all the actors/actresses are quite hot and in demand, heheh. See, looks matter.

In a nutshell, it’s a story about love. Can I end this review here? Heheh *runs*.

*Comes back* CINTA ambitiously undertakes to illustrate the various forms of love within 5 stories. At this point you can’t help but to compare it with Love Actually where all the individuals are somehow connected to each other. Well it’s rather like this in CINTA as well, but as it’s not a unique form of story-telling, it doesn’t really matter (as in, Richard Curtis did not invent that).

All 5 stories take place in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia where shots taking in the Twin Towers and KL Tower (but more of the Twin Towers) are maximised for a location identification purpose. Sometimes it felt a bit like those feel-good Nescafe advertisements. I posed the question of whether the director (Kabir Bhatia, who was not present the day we attended the preview screening) had previous experience shooting advertisements (I was not familiar with his works prior to this). One of the guys there (I forgot who, sorry) answered that it’s only that we are so used to these kind of shots being commercialised in Malaysia, where in fact movie makers all over the world have been and still are using these cinematography options. Hence it’s a matter of mind shift. Fair enough.

The following is a brief rundown for all the five stories; the synopsis are copied from the movie’s website, so I disclaim all continuity and sentence flow irregularities

Age does not diminish one’s capacity for love or need for companionship. The marching of time has not been kind to Elyas (Dato’ Rahim Razali), a retired schoolteacher. But despite illness and age, Rubiah (Fatimah Abu Bakar), a compassionate and kind woman sees Elyas’ dignity and spirit shining through. Can you recognise the face of it, even if you have no memory of it? Does love have to end in your advancing years?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that there is an expiry date for love. One can continue loving another long after s/he passes on to the Pearly Gates, so I don’t see any problem when it comes to this (Too Young To Die, anyone?). I feel that the last line in the synopsis, the question was a bit blah. It hints of Elyas and Rubiah’s relationship being opposed to, and that was not the case in the movie. Well I don’t know why I’m so anal about the copywriting, but I guess I take more notice because this story is actually my favourite among the 5.

I liked Dato’ Rahim Razali’s performance, though Sharizal said he’d seen him do better. Fatimah Abu Bakar (who incidentally is Sharifah Amani’s mother) was rather sweet and superb. There were some tear-jerking moments as the script gives us a glimpse of what it is like to have old age and illness creep upon you. I always get sad when I see older people suffering, thinking of their contributions to society when they were younger and how it all will go away soon (I’m pessimistic like that) and knowing though hardly believing one day it would be my turn (as with all younger people).

There were elements of filial piety and ‘kacang tak lupa kulit’, something you may see on ‘Cerekarama’ (which has quite a few rather good tele-movies).

Read more »