Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Gol & Gincu


My first thought when I sat down to write this review is this: "I'm confused". The set-up is typical of teen rom-coms made anywhere: Girly-girl's in love with boy. Boy breaks up with girl because he's into Futsal (indoor football/soccer) and wants a girl who's a "striker" and not just a "cheerleader", which is practically what our girly-girl is. Girly-girl learns futsal to win back boy. Boy found a new girl who's a striker-girl. Girly-girl is determined to win back boy and beat striker-girl at her own game. Girly-girl learns a thing or two about life along the way. The end.
Directed by Bernard Chauly and written by Rafidah of 3R fame, this movie is touted to be the movie that can bridge the gap between the Malaysian mainstream and the Malaysian indie movie frat. Quite how they think typical Hollywood cheese coupled with beautiful cinematography can bridge that gap, I don't know.
I know I can easily dismiss this as just another piece of unoriginal mindless entertainment and not many will disagree with me. But, having seen the movie, I definitely can't do that. I just can't. I know it's as contrived (plot-wise & in terms of the characters and their lives) as contrived can be. But, credit where credit's due, the movie's got soul. That I'm sure of and is clear for all to see, if you decide to give this movie a look. Despite all the contrivances, the emotions you feel are real. And as much as you loathe the characters for being so 'fake', you still feel for them.
So now you know why I'm confused. There are parts of the movie which I absolutely loathe, but there are also parts which I simply can't help but love. And the culprit is clearly the script. I cannot fault the direction here at all. The director not only has a keen visual sense, but is also humble enough to step back and let the story tell itself at the approppriate moments. We might have here a wonderful new directorial voice who's unafraid to show his love for the characters and who's totally unconcerned with making things look 'cool' or 'different' but instead is concerned with how a camera angle, or stroke of light, or an edit or cut will affect the emotions in a certain scene and the storytelling as a whole. For a young first-time feature filmmaker, that's rare indeed.
As for the script, I think it's a classic case of trying to do too much. Sometimes, in our eagerness to succeed, we inevitably fail. Why? Because we can easily forget what can be done, and what shouldn't be done, regardless of our ambition. It's Rafidah's first script anyway, so I'll cut her some slack. You can't blame her for lack of ambition, that's for sure.
So there it is. Confused yet?

3 comments:

Azwad said...

You share the same thoughts with Afdlin Shauki. Read his blog..

The City Sun Sets Over Me said...

as promised...here are the links

http://tontonfilem.blog-city.com/golgincu.htm

http://www.kroni.biz/jj/2005/10/seks-filem-melayu.html

Dazed and Confused Ili said...

baru nk post the links. have you read it?