on hiatus

I'll be away for the next few days. Heading to KL (where else?) to unwind and recharge and hopefully reset my circadian clock because my sleeping hours have gone really crazy these days, eversince I've stopped reporting to school for official work. I know, I know I've been complaining non-stop about all my sleepless nights planning lessons, doing up powerpoint slides, setting test/exam papers, marking scripts, etc, and I keep telling people that teaching is NOT fun... but right now, when days are spent waking up late and indulging in my couch-potato tendencies, I feel that it's all been worth it.

Well anyway, I shouldn't really be too elated as I gotta go back to work end of next week (sob!sob!).

By the way, I totally forgot to wish everyone a merry Aidiladha. Much too late now isn't it? HAha.



That's my youngest niece. Isn't she just perfectly adorable! What can I say? I LOVE BABIES! :)

flaws and all

Very very recently I've discovered a song by Beyonce, which I mati-mati thought is in her latest album I am... Sasha Fierce but actually, it can be found in her previous album B day, the deluxe edition no less. (Btw, don't you just LOATHE deluxe editions of whatever? especially if you had bought the first, non-deluxe version already???)

This is probably the first (and the last?) time that I will ever append a youtube video to my blog but I'm sooooooo much in lurve with this song right now that I've just gotta share it with everyone no matter how sappy it might make me seem... Well anyway, in the vid, Beyonce is as gorgeous as always despite her power-exec look. Note also how she managed to be rather teary-eyed by song's end. Though not exactly the Oscar-winner type, Beyonce can be a really good actress when she applies herself. Can't wait for Cadillac Records to open in Singapore (she's headlining as Etta James!!).



Yes, I concede the lyrics are quite cliched but seriously, I am feeling this song very much! LOL

every other day, there is a tragedy

As a Singaporean, I felt the death of Lo Hwei Yen (held hostage during the recent Mumbai attacks) very keenly. I couldn't imagine the terror she must have felt right there in that hotel room, bound and waiting for rescue to come, at the mercy of her captors. What horrors must have gone through her mind during those last few moments before her precious life was taken away from her? She was a young, bright lawyer, just a year in her marriage, with a future before her... and by some cruel twist of fate, became a victim of the blind hatred and foolishness of a group of selfish humans who thoughtlessly murder innocents for the advancement of a questionable cause.

Just yesterday, a landslide in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur claimed four lives, demolished more than a dozen homes while displacing hundreds (or thousands?) of other residents living in hillside estates or houses amid the government's fears that this calamity is possibly just a first amongst several others. It's the monsoon season afterall and landslides (devastating or not) are very probable.

It was reported recently that more than a thousand people, in Singapore, have died this year, from HIV infection and AIDS.

What is the purpose of this entry? I honestly don't know.

muallaf

In the not too distant past, I've blogged about the films I've seen but I've realised, quite some time back, that it was foolish of me to be critically assessing these films when in actual fact, I have very little knowledge about film-making, film-history or films at all. Sure, I've taken a module on American Film Studies and a couple other theatre-related modules back in my NUS days, and I must admit that I'm rather picky about the kind of films I watch, but that doesn't make me a film critic does it?

Well anyway, most of the time, though I tried to be as objective as possible in my "reviews", I know that I've failed miserably. The way I judge a film mostly depends on how the show has affected me and I can be quite a biased viewer. Take for instance the latest Yasmin Ahmad film, Muallaf, which opened at Cathay's the Picturehouse last thursday. Even before stepping into the cinema, I've already decided that it was going to be a great film and that I am going to like it very much. How objective is that!!! LOL

When converted to the English language, the term "Muallaf" means a convert, and to Malays (and Muslims), the word is used generally as a noun to refer to non-muslims who have embraced Islam as a religion. After reading several articles, I've discovered that the Chinese translation of the film's title means "Change of Heart", and not really a change of faith (i.e. religion) as the Malay title hints at. I was puzzled by the film's title at first because, although the film takes religious issues (and ideas in theology) and places them boldly and unabashedly center-stage (which is unlike previous Yasmin Ahmad films), there is nothing in the film that hints at a character converting to Islam.

Anyway, despite my preconceived notions that this would be Yasmin Ahmad's "heaviest" film to date (remember the controversy surrounding Sharifah Amani's shaved head??), I can't help thinking that Yasmin's previous film, Gubra, was emotionally more impactful. Nevertheless, Muallaf displays the typical Yasmin Ahmad modus operandi: the minimal use of music or song to enhance scenes, long protracted moments of silence when nothing much really happens on-screen, vistas of scenery to generate a certain mood or emotion, and that occasional snapshot of her film's characters doing something that doesn't seem to have any purpose in the context of the film at all. Most of the time, plotlines are implied rather than made explicit and we're always left to our own devices as to how to interpret certain actions, lines or images.

Great films, I realise, make use of silences and images very effectively. If used appropriately, these silent moments could generate very powerful emotions in the sensitive viewer. Take for instance Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Mukhsin, etc etc. Many of these have been described as "slow and draggy" but if we let them, great films will make us think introspectively, about human nature, humanity and above all else, about ourselves. Muallaf is indeed a great film.

It is not about religion, as most discerning film-reviewers have pointed out, but about love, about forgiving and forgiveness, and most importantly, it is about family.

4.5 out of 5 stars!!! ;D