Resensi: Mata Rabun tapi Hati Celik: An Appreciation of Yasmin Ahmad’s Rabun

With the emergence of the novel in the 16th century, storytelling took a new turn. Those unhappy with the world began to express themselves with the written word. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift was in reality, a veiled attack on certain people at the time who felt that they were above others intellectually. Putera Gunung Tahan by Pak Sako, made fun of the British colonialists via a fantasy tale. Nevertheless, both these stories have been entertaining, and for discerning readers – enlightening. As Rosenbaum has remarked, entertainment and enlightenment can actually be bedfellows. That is what art needs to be if it is intended to reach the masses.

Cinema has been around for a little over a hundred years. Though quite a number of Hollywood’s prodigious output is mindless entertainment, a few gems, nevertheless, have emerged. Among the Oscar award winners are films whose stories were adapted from novels that were strong on character and landscape. What have we learned about these two elements through the art of cinema over the hundred odd years of filmmaking? Closer to home, have Malaysian films and filmmakers moved forward in the art of storytelling? Does Yasmin Ahmad’s Rabun fulfill Rosenbaum’s criteria? Is Yasmin also enlightening us about relevant issues affecting us in our country while giving us an entertaining film? If so, in what ways has she gone about it?

YASMIN AHMAD’S RABUN

I do not for a moment believe that Rabun is only a story about Yasmin’s parents as she has always contended. Take Zhang Yimou’s Hero. His explanation of the use of colours in his film Hero (2002), was in reality, a red herring that camouflaged his real intentions in the story.[3]
I consider Yasmin’s statement also a red herring - one that disguises her real subject (but I would not call her devious, however. All filmmakers use subtext by disguising it as text).
Like P. Ramlee, Yasmin is critical about her race. Like P. Ramlee, she is showing them for what they really are. And like P. Ramlee, she is lemah dan lembut in her criticism. This approach is what makes Rabun interesting. And the character of her parents, as observed by Yasmin, is indeed interesting. Their world view is exemplary. They have discovered the secret to living a life that is profound. For them, life is too short to be little. Therefore, their reactions to what happens to them is what determines their character.

Yasmin’s story, based on her parents, enlightens us about how, in the words of Aristotle, a human being should lead his life. Mak Inom and Pak Atan have already made their choice of how to live their lives and they go on to live it as simply as possible.

The lotus is a Buddhist symbol of purity - to be in the world but not of the world. One has to maintain calmness amidst chaos and turbulence. This perfectly epitomizes the character and attitude of Mak Inom and Pak Atan. Their daughter, Orkid and her boyfriend, Yasin will carry the baton (as the markers in the film show). At the end of the film, all the characters gather to play, forgetting their trials and tribulations. With this scene, Yasmin is in effect saying that this world will become a better place to live in if we react positively towards the things that happen to us. Life is, indeed, too short to be little.

Yasmin’s characters are very ‘P. Ramlee’ – easy to identify and understand. It is perhaps this element that makes P. Ramlee’s films a hit with everybody. Like his films, Rabun is deceptively simple but in reality, very complex. Yasmin uses binary opposites [5] throughout but very subtly. Consider this: Yasmin shows Yem and his stepmother who are about to perform the dawn prayer, visually establishing them as (good) Muslims. Strangely, we never see Mak Inom or Pak Atan ever doing the same. Yasmin’s contention, therefore, is: being religious does not necessarily mean that one is spiritual, but being spiritual (living an exemplary life), makes one religious. [6] Isn’t that what religion desires us to be? Such people will be those on the right path and will be of those who are being rightly-guided. Was there spiritual help, then, for Mak Inom when she flung her stick and managed to hit her target (Yem), even with her eyes closed? [7]

In Yasmin’s eyes, Mak Inom and Pak Atan are like Forrest Gump. Yasmin is saying that good-nature and childlike innocence will enable us to survive and prevail in a cruel world. Yasmin begins her film with the voices of children playing – and ends with visuals of adults playing. Film hermeneutics guides us as to Yasmin’s intentions: if only the grown-ups’ hearts could be like children, wouldn’t they be among those who will ‘enter the Kingdom of God?’ [8] (such cinematic representations run throughout P. Ramlees’s early films). I may not share Yasmin’s total optimism but I give her the right to dream of a world where good people live – inspiring us in the process (as Akira Kurosawa did in the final episode of Dreams [9]). Likewise, Yasmin has created a world that corresponds to her desires – or, rather – one that she hopes for.

RABUN’S TREATMENT

Yasmin employs a formalist approach. As such, one needs to pay careful attention to the patterns that Yasmin creates – what the characters do and say (including what they do not do and say); their reactions; their mannerisms; the production design; the cinematography; the editing; the use of sound and music and mise-en-scene. Only then may one appreciate the film’s gestalt. Her story is multilayered, details start to accumulate and form patterns - and in those patterns you can discern meaning. To find the story, observe the characters, their portrayal and the landscape that they inhabit. The story is found not just in the narrative but also in the use of technique and style. Rabun is a radical break from the typical Malay drama or film. Yasmin has declared it to be an experiment in producing a Malay drama.

Voice-overs actually allow audience involvement and are more effective than the usual approach of diegetic sound as found in local television dramas. Distanciation provokes objectivity – and in turn, a contemplation of the subject. [11] This method is a mark of Yasmin’s approach to storytelling in Rabun. The film begins with a very long take of a tin which contain rubber bands. Over it, we hear the voices of children playing ‘hit the tin.’ We never see the children at all. This non-diegetic technique allows the audience to be involved in the storytelling and in visualising the characters and what they look like through the quality and tone of their voices. The same style occurs later with other scenes where we only hear the voices of the characters over shots taken from a distance. At the end where the adults of different races are seen playing together, their voices gradually fade away to be replaced by music (indicating that they are, after all, of the one Reality that unites them).

CONCLUSION
Christian Metz didn’t have it quite right when he said, ‘Cinema and narrativity is a great fact…but it was never predestined.’ [12] I find more acceptable U-Wei’s contention that ‘cinema is spiritual.’ I would go on to support this by drawing attention to the description of Adam’s creation in the Qur’an. When Adam was created, his first act was to sneeze and he exclaimed, Alhamdulillah (Praise be to God). Christians would exclaim: (God) bless you, when someone sneezed. The Creator is invoked in both religions. The first shot ever taken in the world was, coincidentally, that of a man sneezing. Film is without doubt, one of the most momentous developments in the history of Man. If for everything there is a reason, [13] I contend that cinema is a grace from God - for us to learn from the foibles of man as personified in the film’s characters and their trials and tribulations - characters that man’s art has ‘created,’ with the ultimate objective of giving us a better understanding of our world. Andre Bazin has said that the cinema screen is akin to a window through which we see the lives of others and in turn, we see our own lives reflected in them. Verily, God continues his creation through Man – and helping us to see ourselves through the art that we create.

A mind that is constantly ‘being wiped clean’ is one that can achieve depths of understanding – to go beyond what is shown. Yasmin has early on grasped this. There are many scenes in Rabun that cause us to contemplate the lot of man. This is poignantly depicted in the scene where Mak Inom is applying liniment to the body of Pak Atan who has fallen down in the midnight chase of Yem (this scene is contrasted with an earlier scene of Yem and his step-mother. She calls out to him but gets hit by Yem in anger). As Mak Inom applies liniment, Pak Atan plaintively sings a P. Ramlee song, Tanjong Katong. Overcome, Mak Inom puts her head on his chest and cries silently, her grief articulated through the song’s lyrics: sama sekampung, hai lagi dirindu…. Yem, Nor, Inom and Atan are all of the same kampong (and are related). Why then is there so much discontent and disharmony? Aren’t we all of Adam – whether we be Malay, Chinese, Indian or Thai? Shouldn’t living in peace and harmony be our ultimate aim? In another scene, Pak Atan mistakenly speaks to Mrs. Yap, thinking that she was Mr. Yap. He can be forgiven for he is rabun (short-sighted) but can we forgive Yem, who is not? Pak Atan finds Elvis (played by Ho Yuhang) more trustworthy than his own relative, Yem. Pak Atan kills a blood-sucking mosquito on his arm, exclaiming, Adios, amigo. But what can he do to a ‘human blood-sucker’ in the form of Yem?

Yasmin had many more stories to tell but her themes would still be the same – love, family, compassion, non-discrimination, about the simple things in life and the acceptance of imperfectness in people. Yasmin’s humanity shone in her films as well as in her character. She has used cinema as a substitute to create a world that corresponds to her desires – a world in which there is no discord, enmity or discontent. As a Muslim, she has done her duty - that of calling others to do good. She has entertained us by having us participate in her storytelling. But have we been truly enlightened in the way she wishes us to be? Can we go on to make her dream world a reality?

This is an edited version of a paper that was presented at a film appreciation session at CENFAD on 19 February, 2004 organized by ASPECT: RATIO, Centre for Advanced Design (CENFAD), in collaboration with THE FILM FORUM OF KUALA LUMPUR. The paper also appeared in the JURNAL SKRIN MALAYSIA, published by UiTM in 2005.

Republished here by permission of author.

[1] Movies as Politics, p. 77
[2] Robert McKee: Story, p.15
[3] I contend that the myriad colours of Hero have no real meaning. The real meaning lies in the calligraphy scroll that enlightens the Emperor about the waging of war. I see Hero as an anti-war film, commenting on the current state of affairs in the World – that the culprit is never the leader but the faceless men who surround and advise the leader
[4] As quoted in Robert McKee’s Story, p. 11
[5] Claude Levi-Strauss
[6] There are no scenes of either Pak Atan or Mak Inom performing the obligatory prayers but there is one of Yem and his mother in prayer attire. Yasmin is subtle in her questioning of the real intentions of those who perform the prayers but do not live their lives accordingly.
[7] At the beginning of the film, Mak Inom helps her daughter to win at a game. Even with her eyes closed, she was able to hit the target.
[8] The words of Jesus Christ in the Bible.
[9] Kurosawa imagined a world as it was in the old days – peaceful, with clean water and greenery, where old men were wise and life was easy.
[10] Ingmar Bergman
[11] Bertholt Brecht
[12] Andre Bazin
[13] In true P. Ramlee fashion, Yasmin makes this scene funny while having a serious undertone.
[14] Quoted in Alan Watts’s The Way of Zen, p. 91