First film of this month's film class!
"Perempuan, Isteri & ....." released in 1993, written and directed by U-Wei Haji Saari.
The main characters are Zaleha and Amir, acted by Sofia Jane and Nasir Bilal Khan respectively.
The storyline begins with Zaleha, who is a village girl about to get married with Amir but elopes to southern Thailand to marry another man. After that, Amir tracked them down. Amir who was mad at the two, decided to kill the groom, rapes Zaleha then sells her to a pimp for six months.
Six months later, Zaleha is not submissive as Amir hoped but became sexually experienced and defiant. Zaleha tricks Amir to marry her by reporting Amir to an authority. The six months of Zaleha spent being a prostitute have changed her mentally and physically. It makes her to look for revenge and encourages other women who live in the same village to lead their own lives. In the end, the whole village seeks punishment for Zaleha.
The film genre is drama and fiction. The background music will make you feel intense by following the progress of storyline!
In terms of mise-en-scene, almost 80% of the scenes happened in Malay village (Malay kampung). As compare to city, kampung is not so much developed, hence, the scenes in kampung are less vibrant than the city. The dark lighting shown in Malay kampung denotes that is a less happening place. Furthermore, instead of warm colour, the overall scenes are more to cool colour to hint there are some dark sides stories happen in the Malay kampung!
Move on to the cinematography, there are many middle close-up shots. While the focus is on the characters, it shows their facial expressions and at the same time, it reveals a little of the surroundings.
Regarding the content... In Muslim country like Malaysia, it's less obvious to see how sexuality portrays in Malaysian films. After six months of Zaleha being a prostitute, she has become the ideal sexual objects for the male villagers. You can see that she tries to seduce men from her gestures, dressing style, the way she walks and stuff like that. Apart from feeling guilty and shameful, Zaleha actually enjoy herself being the spotlight of male villagers especially when she is able to express her sexuality while keeping the men in interest.
Although she is already a wife of Amir, but we still can found her involved in many sexual transgressions. For instance, she asked the guy who sells accessories, "Is there other way to pay the debt?". I guess you know what she meant by asking that right...
From her presentation, she is trying to say that she would be happy to pay the debt by using her body. Another example is she has sex with random man, including the village idiot (the one who peak her though a hole in Amir's house). Why Zaleha did all these? It's her revenge towards Amir.
My thoughts after watching this film... I'm surprised at how brave was Mamat Khalid making this film. The storyline and the character Zaleha, somemore a female protagnist, WOW! Back in the 90s, I think it's very rare to have a film that revolves around a female. Although in those time people's mindsets were so conservative and close-minded, Zaleha herself as a female still able to express her sexuality, but the downside... she doesn't have the power to challenge the patriarchy that makes her a victim in the end. Even now, there are more influential women, but the men are still dominating the world.
U-Wei's films always revolve around the Malay rural community. He likes to examine the Malay identity, traditions, cultures, lifestyles, gender roles and social inequalities as male is always position higher than a female. To portray that, there is a scene where Amir tells Zaleha that she doesn't qualify to sleep on the bed, he asked her to sleep on the floor. Amir emphasizes only his wife can sleep on the bed, not the prostitute.
In addition, the film name was not supposed to be named as "Perempuan, Isteri dan .....?". Hmm, you can try to fill in the blank in the dots. If you still have no idea, here it is. The original name is actually "Perempuan, Isteri dan Jalang", literally 'jalang' means whore or slut, yeah you know what's that. The film name embarked a controversy, it's too sensitive to mention in the 90s and in Malaysia as well. That's why the 'jalang' word was replaced with dot dot dot and a question mark. But I don't think this controversy is a bad thing, people are welcome to put their interpretations into the dots!
"Perempuan, Isteri dan .....?" managed to walk away with 5 awards in 11th Malaysian Film Festival that held in 1994, including Best Actor, Best Director, Best Story, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film!
Best! Thumbs up!
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