When can Malaysia really have great films like Parasite?

RECENTLY, in the prestigious Golden Globe Awards held in Beverly Hills, California, a Korean-made film Parasite was awarded as the best foreign film.

Directed by the country’s prolific filmmaker Bong Joon-ho, Parasite, to me, respectfully deserves to be accredited with the award as the film isn’t as cheap as your favourite movies that you can easily pick from your nearby cinema’s “now showing movies” or a movie app that you can freely download using a Wifi, but it’s truly a masterpiece that was philosophically written by Bong in deciphering the unnoticed reality of the people’s segregation in the economic unfairness. If you have watched Parasite but were not pleased with its story as it was like “euwwww what film is this?” to you, you can now be ‘proudly’ called pig-ignorant.

As someone who ardently loves watching films with harboured social and political messages like Parasite, I just started to think that 2020 is a good year for the Hans Isaac-chaired FINAS to craft a supportive initiative that can pull domestic filmmakers to produce philosophical with thoughtful contents works that are in line with global’s par. Viewers, especially those who really care about each Ringgit spent for movies, are now fed up with regularly-screened movies that are not just boring, but their storylines are predictable as if they were the ones who wrote the films.

In the reality, many Malaysians are inadequately smart to accept “need-to-think” films like Bong’s Parasite and The Host to be on their list of to-watch movies.

But the local film industry via its governing body FINAS needs to mould a mutually-liked strategy on how to tempt “bête noire filmmakers” with classy touches in filmmaking like Mamat Khalid and Namron to stand out as a globally-branded filmmaker.

We need no more “village champs” moviemakers who just keep winning locally-certified awards with zero contributions to viewers’ satisfaction, or in Malay, we call it ‘syok sendiri’.

Before hoping that more excellent films can be created by local moviemakers, we, viewers, have to be perceptive first in gauging a movie.

A “best movie” is just a fabricated reality in the world of moviemaking business if viewers are still being blind about differentiating between a movie and a garbage.

A real great filmmaker doesn’t need to please stupid-lame viewers who are not birthed on this earth to appreciate well-made movies that could brainwash their clogged-by-deception minds.

An artist, especially moviemaker and songwriter, must not be rotted into obsessively mining richnesses by worshiping viewers’ hell-made tastes of valuing movies.

I don’t really think that moviemakers like Namron do care about obliging the majority’s taste in making a film, which I believe that he doesn’t make movies for the sake of wanting to be hailed as a millionaire.

Instead, the One Two Jaga’s creator has proved to us that brilliant movies like his don’t bow to senseless audiences who just want to scream, be scared and laugh in cinemas.

Unfortunately, talented but underrated artists like Namron and Mamat Khalid don’t actually get well-deserved applauses like those who regularly screen their self-proclaimed ‘long-awaited movies’ with cliche, draggy and nonsensical plots.

Not many realise that producing a film should be all about schooling humans.

An insightful artwork should be revealing true yet bitter reality that can re-civilise people’s way of deciphering their lives.

Making films is just another way of politicising the population of this paralysing world if filmmakers make films with an intention of owning more bungalows, luxury cars and exorbitant medicines (as if they can avoid death) like animalistic politicians you worship do.

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* Amerul Azry Abdul Aziz is an independent writer who now views politics as something that can be researched.

**The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.