As the years roll on by...

Sesudah Subuh (After Dawn, Malay; 1967)

A gem from the Malay silver screen's bygone era where national integration was high on the agenda. The cast is a multi-ethnic one, and the spoken language include Cantonese, Tamil and English. Life is depicted as it is in real life, almost.

Times were terrible for P Ramlee and the gang. Out of Singapore, in Kuala Lumpur, with few hit movie to brag about, fighting a losing battle with colourful movies from Hollywood and Bollywood, the going was tough. The coffers understandably were dry. 'Pop Yeah Yeah', and 'A-Go-Go' rave filled the air. These were bad times.

Then came A.R. Tompel, his partner in crime with a story true to the times. Life in the city with western influence and how the dynamics of modern family changes. With a skeleton cast of mainly newbies and a couple of famous icons, Ramlee thought he could rekindle the audience's interest.

Ms Vera Wee, 1964, Ms Singapore, who withdrew at the Ms Universe pageant, came in a significant role. Even though she was pleasing to the eyes, star presence was sorely lacking. V.I. Stanley, the veteran Malaysian comedian who used to act in many radio dramas, stage shows and even a Malaysian Tamil movie, gave a stellar performance. I remember seeing him in another P. Ramlee movie, Gerimis.

The mind goes awandering...

With this type of sombre background, P. Ramlee acts as Ariffin, a 50 something unimpressive man with thick-rimmed glasses and a pipe. Ariffin leads a boring life, gets early to work in his book shop and returns home late. He is more of an outcast in his own family, shunned by his children (Salim and Salmiah) for being too preachy, miserly and not hip! Ariffin's wife, Salmi, is not too keen to take care of her husband's welfare but instead, seem to find bliss in performing charity work and lazing around. Ariffin just carries on with life like a zombie, not wanting to upset his family's status quo. As long the family is happy and does his filial duties, he seems pretty content. Actually, what Ariffin really wants is some respect in the family. The only soul who shows any care for his well being is his Javanese gardener, Diro. Now, Diro is quite a comical character. He stole the show with his bumbling antics and his ramblings in Javanese. After P. Ramlee, in my view, the only characters who shined were Diro (Raden Sudiro) and Krishna Moorthy (V.I. Stanley). The other stars were quite stiff.

Who needs him?

Everything changed by Ariffin's chance meeting with Ms Alice (Vera Wee). Being given dignity and recognition, as she moved in to work in his shop, she also moved into his life.

Ariffin's fiery son is Ed Osmera, who went on to star in many of the Malay movies in the 70s. In this movie, his love interest is an Indian girl, Chandra (Surya Kumari), and her household banter are spoken in conversational Tamil. In fact, there is plenty of Cantonese spoken too. Ramlee also strings sentences in quite an impressive Cantonese!

In the end, Ariffin decides to leave the family and migrate to Sabah. In the final scenes, we see a scenic view of Federal Highway scarce of concrete and lush vegetation leading to the Subang International Airport.

The film ends predictably on a happy note, with Alice admitting that it was all a conspiracy to get the family together again. Hence, starts new dawn...

A family that eats together stays together!