Selamat Malam Malaysia

Sudah agak lama saya ingin buat satu “post” dalam Bahasa Melayu yang telah aku meninggalkan sejak berakhirnya Tingkatan Lima dan bermulanya kehidupanku di kolej. Penggunaan terhad setakat secara am/kasar semasa berminum teh dengan “member” yang tidak bermakna dan bagaikan bahasa pasar yang bercampur dengan pelbagai bahasa yang berlainan. Sebelum ingatan saya merosot dan penyalahgunaan bahasa kebangsaan kita mencapai tahap tiada pengampunan, biarlah saya cuba untuk menulis esei buat kali pertama sejak ujian SPM yang sekian lama sudah selesai.

Dengan melihat jam komputer pada lewat malam ini, saya mendapati bahawa saya telah menggunakan hampir tiga puluh minit untuk merangkakan paragraf pertama saya di atas. Jika topik SPM yang teramat suka dengan topik-topik yang memerlukan perbincangan tentang baik buruk perkara berkenaan, terpaksalah saya menonjolkan kesulitan yang dihadapi oleh seseorang yang hanya menggunakan bahasa tersebut di mamak.

Selamat malam.

Junkers come here!

The root word here is not Junk. In English, it technically is. Oh, it’s a name of a dog by the way. It’s pronounced “yunkasu” in Japanese. God knows what that means.

And the title of an anime movie. Very simply done, but reminds me well enough of the exploration of some of the themes in Pan’s Labyrinth. The fantasy part, that is. Both deals with struggling relationships and somewhat depressing environments, although the latter is toward an extreme darkness without much light at the end of the tunnel, except for death, to escape from it all.

Oh there’s been really good movies this past week. Most notably Das Leben Der Anderen (The Lives of Others) was showing at GSC Mid Valley on Sunday which i managed to catch, with the smallish theater almost full, and truly deserved one of the larger cinema halls. It was awesome. Let’s just say the ending felt like The Shawshank Redemption.  For those who missed it, it’s alright, you can still get carried away with your own meaningful lives. If only more European movies of this quality come to our shores more frequently, though i am lauding some efforts with the recent KL Film Festival which i thought should enjoy a prolonged run in the scene, with heavier emphasis on exposure, not censorship. Not think about what movies could be shown here, but rather on which movies to show at all. And i can only imagine the competition getting bigger and better. Which is good since i do dream about making my own movie one day.

Kuala Lumpur deserves a film festival. Let’s make it work. Don’t let Malaysian movies traveled the world making its name before opening here! Movies like “Junkers Come Here” deserves a wider audience, but being the lucky few to have watched it, it almost feels special.   I mean, movies are timeless and ageless. Why is Shakespeare still done today? Why do people not say that, “What, it’s like 500 years ago man, get a life!”?

Yeah, so don’t tell me that the movie was done way back in 1995 when you probably thought CG was Back to the Future stuff. Because i don’t care. And neither should you. Talk about “open minds”, people are really laughable. Slip a nipple, open mind… Tell the truth, “….”.

Junkers! Come here.. oh if i ever have another dog he’ll be junkers!