Mukhsin

I am a Yasmin Ahmad's fan. Having watched Sepet and Gubra I wouldn't want to miss the 3rd instalment of the Orked series. However, I didn't manage to catch it in the cinema (oh... these are the films where WE SHOULD ALL WATCH in cinema to support the movie industry) like what I did for the previous two. But like they said, delayed gratification is definitely worth it.

I would say in general, the movie is calculatively accurate with elements to satisty an audience like me. The opening raining scene featuring a song called "Hujan Keroncong" sang BEAUTIFULLY (I mean, really BEAUTIFULLY) by the great Adibah Noor just gets me hooked on (to add in the fact that I enjoy Malay songs all these while and recently hooked on Sean Ghazi's album...).

I think the story is familiar and relevant enough to all of us. Like what Ang Lee famously remarked "There's a brokeback mountain in each one of us, it's just that we never go there", for Mukhsin, I think it's very much spot-on to say that "There's a Mukhsin in everyone of us, it's just that we were too young to remember it or it's too hurtful to remember it"

I wouldn't want to delve into how the character was the Orked who appear later in Sepet and Gubra. Orked is 10 yo and Mukhsin is 12 yo. It's school holiday (and coincidentally I watched it and write this on the last day of the school holiday in Malaysia). The story covers the span of the holiday and how the sweet innocent love budding and blossomed between the 2 characters and due to some childish misunderstanding (well, didn't we had misunderstandings in any relationship at any stage of our life? being an adult didn't mean we didn't have childish misunderstanding anyway!!!!), they didn't bid a proper farewell, holiday ended and memories remained.

I love Mukhsin and its interesting bits:

1. Songs : Hujan Keroncong by Adibah Noor and Ne Me Quitte Pas (Don't Leave Me) by Nina Simone

2. Orked went to Chinese Primary School. Orked said her father sent her to Chinese school because he wants her to know Chinese language they (the parents) know Malay language. I wonder is that why I was sent to the Malay national school. No regrets though.

3. The use of some very LOCAL Malay words which you definitely not gonna use in any of the school karangan whatsoever: melaram, kumpul lemak engkau, merayap macam tak cukup tanah etc.... For me, all this create a tinge of familiarity as I didn't converse in Malay as frequent as I used to be.

4. Ho Yu Hang (another famous renowned local indie director) had a cameo though no face shown and if I'm not mistaken spoke some Hakka.

5. The movie ended with a poem in Chinese (yes, you folks out there.... it's a Chinese poem in a Malay movie) though it's not a surprise cox Sepet started with a song by Sam Hui.

6. Notable and subtly funny scenes include the one with dialogue "Bestnya jadi motorsikal" and the "Ice cream making scene" by Adibah Noor.

I dun understand though the scene where Bujang the Cat was thrown out because mencemar budaya. It killed a chicken? Those who know, please enlighten me.

Lastly I brought you the closing poem at the movie, both in Chinese (screen) and English (voice-over).

当我听到第一个爱情故事

The minute I heard my first love story

我已经开始寻觅你

I started looking for you

虽然只是一种无知的盲目

Not knowing how blind that was

你我从未相遇

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere

却仿佛早已认识很久

They're in each other all along

I WOULD SUGGEST WHY DON'T YOU WATCH THIS MOVIE AS A TRIBUTE TO OUR NATION'S 50TH YEAR OF INDEPENDENCE?

"There's a Mukhsin in everyone of us, it's just that we were too young to remember it or it's too hurtful to remember it"

DID U REMEMBER YOUR MUKHSIN?