The Universe does not revolve around you!

 Roh (Soul, Spirit, Malay; 2019)

A few years ago, around Kuala Lumpur, a seasoned trekker went on a solo reconnaissance look around to prepare a route for his friends to walk the following day. He wanted to make a quick recce as he could only start it at 6pm. It was still bright, not too dark but not yet twilight. It was 9pm when the family realised that he was uncontactable. A search was initiated. Many experienced hikers and firemen joined the foray. After failing to locate him that night, they deployed the help of Orang Asli master trekkers who were well-versed with the affairs of the wilderness. Scurrying up and down the path using paper markers that were left behind by the missing trekker, they were puzzled why he could not be traced. Then the Orang Asli trekkers summoned their shamans. The experienced man did some salutations to the guardians of the forest, and before they knew it, the lost trekker was found right under their noses along the very same paths that they were scrutinising all the while. The trekker was too dehydrated or dazed to remember what had happened to him. 

Though everyone was happy that the trekker was finally found, they also puzzled where did he actually go. It was like someone taken him away for a while, and then like a second thought, or cajoling, had put him back again. It sounds much like an alien abduction story, does it not? There are many things that we do not understand about Nature. Out in the wilderness, unprotected, alone and vulnerable, we make our rules as we needle our ways through the unknown. We learn the respect every living thing, and we are no longer the centre of existence. We do not tolerate but merely co-exist.

This film is Malaysia's submission to 2021 to the Academy Awards in the category of Best International Feature Film. So far, over the years, five films had been sent to compete, but sadly none had been nominated. FINAS recently announced that this Malaysian movie was chosen for this purpose. I find it intriguing as FINAS had clear cut guidelines about not approving any film which seem to go against the grain of the nation's official religion, it had endorsed this film which deals with spirituality and the occult.

'Roh' is set in an unspecified time at an isolated jungle location where life is simple, and living means working hard day-to-day depending on the elements of Nature. A mother, living with her two kids, an early teen girl and a pre-teen boy, is greeted with a wandering young girl who was picking up in the woods. Economical with her words, she slashes her neck before warning them the family would all die before the next full moon. Two other characters appear in their otherwise isolated lives asking for the dead girl. The rest of the story is a psychological affair with a lot of combustion and eerie music which would make the audience's hairs stand on end but without the lousy make-up type of gore.

The whole story is based on a verse from the Quran 7:12 & 14, where Satan claims to be superior as compared to humans as He is made of fire whilst humans of clay. And Satan asks God for time, till the day of reckoning, to influence humans!

[P.S. Can be viewed at mubi.com/sinema]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

All the hype of going back to nature!

Naked and Afraid: S2E5 (Malaysia)

Purists are still jumping mad over this Discovery Channel reality TV show. The crew was given permission to do shooting in Malaysia but little did the authorities know that this survival show would be done with the contestants in their birthday suit using the unforgivingly harsh Malaysian tropical jungle as its backdrop. The conservatives are fuming mad because they do not want to be seen as condoning these type of exhibition of flesh. And they are still scratching their heads wondering how that one slipped through while the rest of the world does not give much thought this unstimulating show which I would not have bothered to view if not for the mania stirred by holier-than-thou vanguards of moral code of my society!
For all fairness, the necessity of the contestants to go full monty is purely an economic strategy (ka chinggg...). The donning of single drape to cover their modesty is not in any way going to alter their survival in the cruel tropical jungles.
In this episode, a couple, unknown to each other before the show, are left in the Belum Forest in Perak to spend 21 days in the virgin jungle without any external help. To set the mood for the danger the contestants were stepping into, the commentator introduced some of the deadly beasts found here. These include the venomous 100-step blue and red coral snake (that is how far the victim walks before his death), wild boars, tigers, disease carrying mozzies and insects, leeches and territorial monitor lizards.
Samatha Pearson, a 38 year old single mum of two and Fernando Cauldron, a 33 year old fire fighter were the guests in that episode. Each contestant was allowed a single item- Samantha chose fire starter and Fernando, a machete. A handheld camera was available for them to record themselves and a small filming crew with strict instructions not to intervene hover around them to record their daily activity.
After building a suspense, the rest of the show did not prove as interesting. It was raining all the first 6 days of their expedition. With limited resources and skills, they built a small shed with bamboo and leaves. Their sensitive areas were not bear for viewers to view as they were pixelated throughout, if you do not count the posterior bit.
Getting edible food was a challenge and Fernando almost died from wild mushroom consumption. Somehow, they survived the challenge and managed to swim out to the meeting point, hungry, weak, thin with their bodies mutilated by the elements of nature and losing 20 and 30lbs respectively.
Not worth the half an hour spending on this show.

‘Naked and Afraid’: How did it slip through?

It is a jungle out there.

There she was, a mid 50s a disciplined runner who is the envy of ladies of her age in the housing estate who would die to have a physique like hers, waiting outside the emergency room with her right hand all dressed up to see an orthopaedic doctor who would later assess the extend of her injuries and probably stitch up her hand which had been mauled by a stray dog. She, a dog owner herself, of many Rottweilers and Alsatians, as her husband trained guard dogs for a living could not believe her predicament.

Having lived a time just after a time when typhoid and tuberculosis were treated with eggs and fresh air, she believed in the outdoors. Equipped with a earphones and iPod, she would just go for her evening runs without disturbing a soul but with her sole intention to complete her bodily duties.
In fact, a few minutes before the said event, she had patted the stray dog. On her way back, out of the blues, as if like possessed, she went for her hand. A Good Samaritan who came to her rescue was also injured!
The outdoors is becoming more hostile to us as time go by. Forget about fresh air! The moment we step outside the comfort of our homes, we are greeted with fumes of automobiles and the ever deteriorating quality of air. If that is not enough, we have the ever expanding horse power capacity cars manned (and 'woman'ed) by mindless drivers with ever shrinking thoughts for pedestrians to dodge from. Then we have to brace ourselves against the tyranny of knife yielding small time petty thieves.
So it looks the outdoors is only for animals- it is a jungle out there!