Penipu Chilayu!

I had a spiritual experience in the theater yesterday. Facilitated by Marion D’Cruz.

Surrounded by an audience of awkwardly dressed students, she walked, danced and Gostan-ed Forward about the room, recounting her artistic history in the most natural way.

‘Is what I do called ‘dance’?’

She threw that question at us and just waited. Sipping from her plastic water tumbler as she sat cross-legged on the table, watching us in wait. Most of us dared not say anything. She mostly worked with non-dancers. And there wasn’t always music. Was this a trick question? Should we ‘industry people’, friends, students of art, know this answer? Am I the only one sitting in fear that she would directly call my name and ask for an answer? Marion is a dangerously unpredictable person.

Her voice took my psychosis to the next level, ‘Huh? Saya ni ‘penari’ ke?’

A few audience members managed a weak ‘no’ but offered no real suggestion.

‘Throughout my career I have told people I ni penari. Tapi I bukan penari. I penipu!’

We laughed.

It wasn’t the first time. The comedy began earlier in the night when director Mark Teh advised us, ‘you want to take pictures you can, but don’t use the flash. Otherwise Marion will flash you.’

He went on to find out from the audience how many of us had known Marion more than 20 years.

I met Marion about 10 years ago. I was pinning posters on Faridah Merican’s wall when Marion walked in with a rooster.

She was feisty then. Smack in the middle of a career that was deeply rooted in a strong sense of artistic purpose, she had pushed boundaries and scandalised many a frigid soul by becoming the first non-Malay, non-male to study the great art of wayang kulit, by performing a fusion of silat, gamelan and traditional South East Asian dances in Central Park NYC, by ‘bathing’ in public with her Urn Piece…

And she’s still as feisty as ever. A couple of years ago, dismayed by the injustices that inundated her country, she choreographed Bunga Raya, Bunga Manggar, an ensemble piece crying out for a vision of Malaysia that was lost somewhere between the histories and hopes of 40 other artists.

It makes sense when she reveals her greatest influences – W.S.Rendra, Che Guevara and Jesus Christ. ‘All people engaged in a battle to make their world a better place,’ as Kakiseni interviewer Daneels puts it.

But watching Gostan Forward, I was yearning not to hear less about her performance history, but to hear more about the person behind the topeng – her personal and spiritual journey as an artist. ‘But good artists give terrible interviews,’ someone once told me about Al Pacino. So maybe this is something a dancer cannot eloquently express in words. Maybe I need to actually WATCH her, beyond contextually displaced, albeit fascinating, 2-minute snippets.

And then suddenly she gives us something. An image. An image of a young and skinny Malayalee girl practicing her ballet moves in her school uniform, on the horizontal bar of a lonely bus-stop as 1960s cars chug by. Destiny beckoning? You see, Malayalee girls from that time just don’t do that. Maybe she didn’t realise it then, but Marion was a rebel (why does this word feel so incomplete?) right from the start.

The question I cannot help but ask myself is this: if we had looked into the eyes of Marion at that age, could we have seen her future?

Is it such a surprise that many years later in the 1970s, Marion would find herself frantically escaping from billowing tear-gas and irate policemen deep in Kampung Baru. That Malay Mak Cik who opened the door for the bandanna bearing fugitive Malayalee girl and let her hide under her mattress for a good 2 hours, could she see that Marion would go on to nudge the doors of Malaysia’s artistic minds a little wider open?

I wonder.

Regain Our Paradise!!

In a few short weeks, some dear friends and I are embarking on a project that, we anticipate, will change the very way we will look at our country, our people and our own selves.

The degree to which you support this project is the degree to which it will succeed.

What is it about?

Tragically, Malaysia possesses one dominant story that has been told and retold a thousand times from KBSM right through to Media Prima. Call it ‘Muhibbah’, call it ‘Ali, Ah Chong and Muthu’, call it ‘Malaysia Truly Asia’, call it all these things that they have called it…but we believe the time has come to end this myopia.

“The problem with these stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.” These are not Malaysia’s only stories!! And it is just as important to talk all these other stories that belong to you, your Thai-speaking neighbour from Kelantan, your ethnically confused sister-in-law from Sarawak, etcetera…!! Why is one writer’s story more important that anyone else’s? What if we could listen to the experiences of Malaysians in every nook and simpang of this country?

This project is about our country and our stories.

As the beautiful Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie stands serenely still, her typhoonic words cannot help but beat down upon the listener, cleansing and uplifting our imaginations, our very artistic, cultural and national futures, into the skies of a new paradigm.

“When we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.”

Regain this paradise with us? Tell us your story?

Hopeless Industry

I just met a gentleman yesterday at a funeral.

He must have been very upset that night, because he told me right to my face that I worked in a hopeless industry. (He even sighed heavily when Gin told him that she was married to me. I gave him my best smile, but he still hung his head low and shook it with regret on Gin’s behalf… But that’s not a post for today)

Can someone please tell me what he is talking about?

My industry is about nothing BUT hope!

Maybe movie-posters like the above confuse him. Perhaps they look bleak? A cute dog trapped in the cone-of-shame…

Maybe his children need to drag him, albeit kicking and screaming, to the cinema, tape onto his forehead a set of 3D glasses, put his handphone on silent and force him to watch Up.

Even if the film stopped after the first segment (about 20 minutes in), the RM18 per ticket would still have been worth it and he would have left the cinema a changed man.

By the way, anyone know any home remedies to get Gin to stop imitating Doug. She is forever “hi there” and “squirrel”-ing away at home and I can’t get her to stop!

The Case of the Curious Casting Call

M: So what was your movie about?

G: Domestic abuse.

M: Abuse? Why on earth did you make a film about abuse?

G: Because I have first hand experience.

M: Come on! You?!?

G: My father used to do things to my mum. It used to really piss me off. So I made a film about it.

M: Does your father know about this film?

G: Ya, he acted in it.

M: Sorry, say that again?

G: My father acted in my film.

M: As the abuser?

G: Ya. He was the most suitable for the role what!

M: How did you get your father to agree to act in your film?!!

G: I just asked him to act for me la… He didn’t know what it was about but he said yes. Then on shoot day only I showed him the script.

M: And?

G: And of course he can’t pull out then right?!

What artistic courage this young man has!!

(I must note that the years of abuse are long gone. G was perceptive to note: it all ended when my mother got a job and became financially independent.)

The Reluctantly Retired Stunt Man

At 15, Beto began his film career as a stunt man. (Let’s ignore for a moment the fact that a 15 year old is allowed to do stunts on a film set.)

I learned a very important lesson from Beto: You can take the actor out of the stunt, but you can’t take the stunt man out of the actor.

On one of his off days, Beto decided to go play football with his friends. He came back to work the next day with a swollen hand.

Many hours into the shoot I noticed him discreetly nursing his hand.

“You okay?”

He smiled, “yes” and turned to show me a hand that looked as though a drunk plastic surgeon had just injected too much botox into. In fact, it looked like a baby’s bottom.

“Just a small bump…”

“A bump?! Your hand could be broken!”

“Hehehe…”

Hehehe?

I hear that this is how very committed actors can get. They lose unhealthy amounts of weight (Christian Bale), put on unhealthy amounts of weight (Charlize Theron), break bones (Jackie Chan), smash their hands on glass etc…

But it is really painful for the director to watch.

And with regards to Beto, this was not the only incident. A month later, midway into a stretch of football shoots we realised, while we are getting him to do continuous bicycle kicks (very hard on the back), that his right leg had been severely scrapped.

“Beto, what happened?”

“Hehehe…”

There it was again!

“Beto, come on man!”

My Production Manager filled me in, “he was playing around with the guys on the pitch during the break yesterday and…”

“So it’s no

t my fault?”

“No no no no,” he reassured me, somewhat.

A few bicycle kicks later, unable to bare watching him throw himself hard into the mud over and over again, my compassionate PM disturbed me again. “Manesh, how much longer are you going to get him to do those kicks?”

“Beto. How many more kicks can you do for me?”

With an open

and happily resigned gesture,“However many more you want.”

I truly take my hat off to this guy. A giving actor even when the camera is not on him, Beto is 100% committed to his work and has the most humble yet professional disposition. His work ethic reminds me of the quote from the Baha’i Faith, “Work is worship, service is prayer.” This guy performed his work with the utmost excellence and in the spirit of true worship.

Anyway, about 10 bicycle kicks later we changed scene and we went ahead to torture him in yet another way.

“Beto, in this scene I need the defender to shoulder barge you and then I need you to drop hard on the ground.”

“Ok.”

I jogged back

to my monitor and braced myself. Every single take (there were at least 10) we winced, jolted in our seats and ‘ooh’-ed watching him take a serious beating from a guy much larger than him! The defender would whack Beto. His neck and head recoiled at the impact, his body would lift a little into the air and twist. He would then fall hard on the ground with an all-natural grunt that would make even Sharapova proud, “uugh!!”

Next shot.

“Beto, I need this defender to tackle you from behind and then this other defender is going to step on your stomach.”

“Ok.”

As I asked him that question, I geared all my senses to pick up even an iota of hesitation. But there was NONE!

So Beto happily got his stomach stepped on about 15 times. Sure there was padding, but still!! The studs, the full weight of another guy…

Anyway, at the wrap party I made it a point to apologise to his wife. She gave me a look that threatened to unleash, in a single moment, the 3 months of violence we had inflicted on her husband. Didn’t she like the he was so macho?

“Beto, did you get your hand checked up in the end?”

“Ya, it was broken all along.”

I shook my head, too stunned to say anything.

And then he did it again.

“Hehehe…”

These actors I tell you!

In bed on the pitch with cameraman Chun

“She knows I is a Production Guy”

There was once where Ah Leong went for 3 months without seeing his 5 year old daughter.

Then she called one day, “Daddy, have you forgotten that you have a daughter?!”

He laughs out loud with an “Oh shit man!” as he tells me this.

I am, of course, perplexed. If my daughter said that to me, would I be so cool?

“And your wife doesn’t say anything?”

“She knows I is a Production Guy.”

I’m waiting for more explanation, but it seems that Ah Leong thinks I should understand by now! Maybe I’m missing something unsaid. The other guys around me are nodding knowingly.

Is that what they tell their families? Does it actually work?!

Don’t get me wrong, Ah Leong is dedicated to his job, cares for his team and is good at what he does. Besides being my durian and seafood buddy when everyone is late, he’s a master of location management.

His skill is extremely rare and highly valued – the capacity to convince people to allow us to turn their premises upside down, handle all their stuff with our grubby hands, sit on their chairs with our grotty clothes, tell them to keep silent under their own roofs and basically kick them out of their own houses as long as we need to.

Ah Leong takes them out for tea, tells lots of jokes and recounts many production anecdotes that keep the hosts entertained, distracted, placated, as we go about our risky business.

If you saw him work his magic, it would look like he’s having a good time, but he’s stressed to the max because he knows that the rest of the team’s business smells too fishy.

But back to being a ‘production guy’. Is it a synonym for ’someone with no other purpose in life’?

Once Ah Leong got a terrible infection. It started out as a sore throat and fever. He had pain when swallowing (to a Chinese guy who loved his food, this is as good as a death sentence) but insisted on continuing with work, citing ‘no time’ as an excuse to not see the doctor.

“What do you mean no time to see the doctor?”

“Then the production how?”

A few days later he had completely lost his voice, hadn’t eaten in days, lost a lot of weight (except his tonsils which had impressively grown in weight and size) and was basically in critical condition.

When he saw the doctor he was immediately admitted.

“You want to die is it?” (yes, doctors do speak like this sometimes)

I believe the doctor told him that if he had waited even just one more day, Ah Leong would have either lost his voice forever, or his life (I think he would have preferred the latter).

“I almost died for production.”

Yes, Ah Leong is a hero. And I wish there was a medal for the sacrifices that production guys like him make all the time.

But surely art is not worth so much of one’s life?

Or is it?

A breed unlike any other

Just a few names appear on the poster, but...

Movies tell stories.

But behind every production there are a thousand other dramas, many of them far more heart-breaking, inspiring and funny than anything ever put on screen.

Francois Truffaut once famously said, “I want a film I watch to express either the joy of making cinema or the anguish of making cinema.”

The next few posts will be dedicated to these joys and anguishes.

Because it takes a certain type to persist through the broken bones and overturned cars, to smile through the violent threats and sudden disasters, and to come out of the worst few months of their lives and say, “boy, let’s do that again!”

I know, we should really go see therapists.

Anyhow, the next few posts will be a celebration of the un-sung, un-credited heroes (at least on the poster), responsible for all the joys and anguish I had on this project.

To introduce some of them:

...but it really takes a whole battalion to make a good show.

I try to not get personal but this time…

"In love, women are professionals, men are amateurs." - Filmmaker Francois Truffaut's wise words.

It was my wedding anniversary on the 1st of September.

I spent a total of 3 minutes with my Gin.

I rushed into the house at 7.57am after a night of intense shooting, smelling terrible and looking even worse.

“Hi honey, happy anniversary, I need to use the loo.”

We were both rushing.

2 minutes later I scrambled back to the front door where she was already getting into her sandals.

She looked up at me with those eyes – sore from missing me but yet hiding behind a veil of resilience, summoned to make me feel comforted and guilt-free.

I gave her a restrained hug, careful not to transfer a nights worth of on-shoot-location-bacteria (not everyone has the immunity), and said goodbye.

From behind the grill I watched her walk away from me down that long corridor, turning every few steps to wave another goodbye, both of us trying to milk as many seconds of our anniversary together as we could.

Seconds later, she turned the corner and was out of sight.

Of all the good people I have met in my 16 week blogging hiatus (and there have been many), she’s been the best.

Without her support, this would never have been possible:

Zee Avi

She appeared in the papers last year.

But sadly, scientists have yet to figure out how to embed YouTube videos into newspapers and many of us may have missed this all-important piece of news.

What a shame! What a waste! What a terrible pity!

This 23 year old is one of us, folks!!

Discovered on the internet posting her own tunes from home, the artist formerly known as KokoKaina has, unasked, shot to fame in the US, has cut an excellent record and is doing what she loves and does best. Ole!

Put a smile on your face today. When your day is busiest and most stressful, close all those windows, sit back and check out these tracks.

Here is a set of music videos by Zee Avi (especially watch the one in minute 6 which mixes Bahasa and English).

Life of Pi

“I have a story that will make you believe in God.”

You must have read it before. I know, I’m a little slow on the pick-up.

I’m only 101 pages through but I HAVE to make a post about this book.

It’s made me laugh every 2 pages or so. Out loud. Which made it difficult for Gin to sleep. What with passages like:

I have nothing to say about my working life, only that a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he’s not careful.

Okay, maybe this is less funny and more self-affirming.

But what I liked from the first 101 pages is the way this guy looks at religion and spirituality. He looks at atheist as brothers and sisters of a different faith!

Like me they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them – and then they leap. I’ll be honest about it. It’s not atheist who get me in a craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the Garden of Gethsamane. If Christ playedf with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

Pi has religiously indifferent parents but carries a Hindu identity. Then he discovers Jesus, and when the priest endorses his belief, Pi is so overjoyed that he runs to the nearest Hindu temple to offer thanks to Lord Krishna for having put Jesus of Nazareth, whose humanity he found so compelling, in his way.

!!! Love it.

One Good Friday in church some 20 years ago, upon discovering that Christ had died, I told my mum, “thank God there’s Muruga!” It is no surprise that these matters make sense to children. My question is, where along the way do we learn to be so myopic in our beliefs that we fail to see the divinity in all religions?

Then in the book, lo and behold, Pi becomes a Muslim! “I challenge anyone to understand Islam, its spirit, and not to love it.”

Never mind this fascinating journey which makes complete sense to Pi but baffles and frustrates the priest, pandit and imam. I am most taken by Pi’s (Martel’s?) opinions on atheists and agnostics. I mean, chew on chapter 22:

I can well imagine an atheist’s last words: “White, white! L-L-Love! My God!” – and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try o explain the warm light bathing him by saying, “Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain,” and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story.

So what do you think?