Gubra by Yasmin Ahmad (2006) *Malaysia

Gubra by Yasmin Ahmad (2000) - Discussion with Chloe and Ruiting

by Ng Suat May on Friday, 22 April 2011 at 20:13

Personally, I like this film alot. A love story with some slight humour. Yet, I thought the film highlights some controversial issues in Malaysia.

"Gubra" means worry. "Gubra" is used by the Mamak (Tamil people) community in Penang and Kedah, Malaysia.

Yasmin Ahmad is a female Malaysian film-maker. She is married to a Chinese. Unfortunatele, she died in 2009 due to a stroke.

I found a few articles and pasted some extracts below. Might be useful for the discussion. :-)

I realised that this film has created a lot of controversy especially from the Muslim community.

"On Sunday night (April 23, 2006), two critics on RTM1's live programme 'Fenomena Seni' charged that the award-winning film director - also known for her Petronas advertisements - has defiled Malay Muslim culture through her two movies.

But others have countered these criticisms, saying Yasmin's movies show that Islam promotes tolerance and compassion.

'Fenomena Seni' panelist, film producer Raja Azmi Raja Sulaiman, said on the show that the 'bilal' character in 'Gubra', now playing in cinemas, should not have been shown cooking in the kitchen.

"A pious wife would not allow her husband to cook," she said.

The other panelists were 'Berita Harian' assistant entertainment editor and film critic Akmal Abdullah and veteran film director Hassan Mutalib.

Raja Azmi and Akmal also charged that the 'bilal' in 'Gubra', who together with his wife, were friendly with sex workers in their neighbourhood, was unfit to be a 'bilal'.

"He should have called the religious authorities to catch them. What kind of 'bilal' allows these activities to continue in his neighbourhood?" Akmal said.

He added that it was confusing for Malay Muslims when Orked, the protagonist in 'Sepet', who was shown to be a pious Malay Muslim girl could fall in love with a Chinese 'kafir' (infidel) who was a criminal.

Link: http://www.sistersinislam.org.my/index.php?Itemid=189&id=327&option=com_content&task=view

"Yasmin, who tends to explore sensitive subjects such as inter-racial relationships and religion, is no stranger to controversy. Her previous efforts were criticized at home but some went on to win awards at film festivals abroad, garnering her acclaim." - Reuters/Jalil Hamid, 29 June 2007

"It's rare to find a woman filmmaker in Muslim society, and even rarer when she is an outspoken talent unafraid of

controversy," wrote Roger Garcia, former director of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, of Yasmin.

Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/29/us-malaysia-filmmaker-idUSKLR21119520070629

"What grounds these characters is Yasmin's unerring instinct for heartfelt emotions.

Her technique has matured with some subtlety. The sequence in which Temah discovers her HIV-positive status is told entirely without dialogue, through acting and nimble editing.

But what is remarkable is also Yasmin's singularly non-judgmental eye. Her camera remains mostly still, observing her characters as they endure emotional upheavals in carefully framed tableaus.

There is genuine curiosity and engagement in her gaze. Thus she invites the audience to be engaged as well." - Ong Sor Fen, Singapore's The Straits Times

Link: http://yasminthestoryteller.blogspot.com/2006/03/singapore-straits-times-review-of.html

Ruiting says:

Gubra by Yasmin Ahmad (2006)

I enjoyed this Malaysian movie a lot as it talks a lot about the challenges faced in love. I was shocked to see that it was possible for a Chinese and a malay to get into a relationship. We can observe that the Malays are muslims given that they said sailam ( May Allah bless you) to their loved ones. Given that in Malaysia, the courts condemned public display of behaviour among the Muslims. Hence, it was quite surprising to see the Malays in the film being so open about their relationships. I remembered that conservative muslims do not agree with muslims holding hands in public. But in this film, we truly observe the otherwise. Perhaps, I should not say that it is a cultural shock, but perhaps a cultural surprise.

This film has been a light-hearted film with different love stories and I really enjoyed the heart warming stories of some , empathised with the sad stories of others.

I should count myself lucky to have read the review of the film before watching the film. Hence, I sat till the end of the film. I realised that I need to watch the first part of the film in order to understand the deep feelings Orked and Jason had for each other. It left me wondering how the relationship develop?

In this film, race and religion does not seem to take a primary role in the relationship. This film also reminds me of my friend who is a muslim but loves a Chinese. In reality, it can indeed be a challenging task to overcome these differences and love.

I’m really keen to watch sepet. Besides, I have to change one of the films as the film I wanted to watch did not have any subtitles.

So, looking forward to Sepet!!!!!

http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/02/gubra.html

http://yasminthestoryteller.blogspot.com/2006/03/singapore-straits-times-review-of.html

· · Share

• • 

    Ng Suat May

    Actually, when I first started watching the film, I was rather surprised to see the Malay man (can't remember his name in the film) touching the dog. I thought their faith does not allow contact with dogs. Certainly, this is one Malaysian film after watching The Big Durian by Amir Muhammed, that highlights certain sensitve issues. Inter-ethnic relationships (between Malays and Chinese), Alan's father who demanded for roast pork while in hospitalisation and there was a Malay family beside his bed... Personally, I think this film conveys tolerance and acceptance of each other's religions and cultures. Malaysia is a multi-racial country... :-) There are also some funny parts in the film, e.g Orked's husband explaining to a nurse after his father-in-law was shortly rushed to hospital, describing his wife as someone who had just crawled out from a "lonkang" for she looked very unkempt... The possible romance between the plump housekeeper (a Malay) and a male nurse (a Chinese), Orked's parents "dancing" on the hospital bed.... HAHA... Overall, I think this is a rather enjoyable film. :-)

    22 April at 20:25 ·
  • 

    Ng Suat May Sorry, for some reason, the paragraphing is disorganized

    22 April at 20:52 ·
  • 

    Josephine Pang Rui Ting this film has been interesting especially when it shows that love is above race, religion and perhaps even politics. anw, did u guys see what happened aft the credits? Click on the nutshell review to find out more

    23 April at 21:57 ·
  • 

    Ng Suat May I realise I miss that final scene but watched it on youtube though... Actually I thought Orked will end up with Alan...

    23 April at 22:10 ·
  • 

    Josephine Pang Rui Ting i didnt noe the director died leh. i wonder whether this film is banned in malaysia though?

    23 April at 22:40 ·
  • 

    Ng Suat May Hmmm.. went to see an article: "Gubra", the follow-up to Yasmin's inter-racial love drama "Sepet", was nearly banned in Malaysia. The film about a relationship between an ethnic Chinese boy and a Malay girl, went on to win numerous awards including the Grand Prix Award at the Creteil International Women's Film Festival.
    
    http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/entertainment/view/445728/1/.html

    24 April at 12:18 ·
  • 

    Josephine Pang Rui Ting haha. thanks for enligtening me :D

    24 April at 14:26 ·
  • 

    Ng Suat May haha... no problem ;-)

    24 April at 17:17 ·
  • 

    Chloe Christabella Tang

    http://www.jstor.org.ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu.sg/stable/pdfplus/10.1525/fq.2009.62.3.48.pdf
    Found an article about the film by Gerald Sim titled "Yasmin Ahmad's Orked trilogy."
    
    When I first watched the film, I thought that Orked was just one of the main characters interweaved in this sentimental and complex tableau, representative of life and its interconnectivity. This is largely due to the arguably separate stories of two prostitutes Temah and Kiah, and the family of the bilal, their neighbours who try their best to extend some help to them. It was interesting to read the reviews and find out that Yasmin intention was for the 2 films for the audience to follow Orked's journey through her teens, marriage then a prequel in her adolescence through the trilogy. Agree with Josephine that when we watch the other two films Sepet and Mukhsin, we will have an even better appreciation of this film Gubra. Still, the two stories of different families form a microcosm of the multi racial malaysian society, making it an extension of a possible comment on the nation's struggles, as it addresses .
    
    "Sepet and Gubra take place in suburban Malaysia. The
    mood in the family’s middle-class home is mellow. In their
    quiet bungalow Orked reads books and shares intimate moments with her family, away from economic and urban centers where the country is staging its advance into the
    developed world."
    This is seen clearly from the scenes in which the family interacts with one another in their cozy homes and them owning luxuries like cars which is a distinct mark of civilisation's progress and rise in living standards.
    
    "An avowed cinephile student of Chaplin, Ozu, and
    Hou Hsiao-hsien, she prefers to allow human emotions and
    everyday gestures to unfold in their own time."
    I agree very much with this description of how Yasmin uses long takes to capture human emotion, contrary to close ups to intensify emotional or melodramatic moments. You can see her mastery in highly tense scenes like Orked and Ariff's quarrel. Instead of choosing to use edits to make it fast paced and tense, she uses one wide shot to show Orked's refusal to talk to her husband in the face of his betrayal and her breakdown as she struggles to break free from any contact with him.
    
    You can see the motif of touch as a form of love and expression of the intimacy of relationships in such scenes. I particularly remember the scene where Orked stubbornly sleeps in the living room with her pillow and blanket and Ariff carries her back into their bedroom, a common living space shared by a married couple, accompanied by non-diegetic simple xylophonic beats and touches her hair intimately, fighting to retain any remaining semblance of love she might still have for him.

    13 minutes ago ·
  • 

    Chloe Christabella Tang

    ‎"In both Sepet and Gubra, Ahmad stages arguments between members of the clan where each person is yelling in a
    different language. Because of the speed of the talking and
    the interplay of languages, precise subtitling is perhaps impossible, but this means we are all the more aware of the
    tangled, disputatious speech. If we are not familiar with the
    local languages and dialogue, we must acknowledge our distance from the cultural specifics being depicted. These
    scenes are interesting because they explore multiracial kinship through comedy, whose impact is primarily aural due to
    Ahmad’s subdued visual style. The polyglot cacophony has
    an aesthetically pleasing, even beautiful, sonic affect. Departing from the usual trope of finding utopia through human
    commonality that she herself used in Percintaan Tan Hong
    Ming, Ahmad articulates that euphoria with conflict, constructing emotional complexity by finding warmth through
    aggression and humor."
    
    You see much of this in Gubra where Jason's parents are often arguing, with the malay mother speaking in malay and the father constantly yelling back in Cantonese (which is what most of the chinese malays speak) and them refusing to speak the language of the other, which makes it even more poignant when eventually, in silence, the two reconcile through the holding of hands, the father comforting the crying mother through his silent touch.
    
    There is also a direct reference to the theme of Malaysia's multiculturalism when Orked and Alan have a dialogue exchange about how they love the country for what it is, even despite their realisation about how difficult it is for those who have been somewhat marginalised by the underlying social and political discord in the country.

    4 minutes ago ·