Double Afdlin Burger

Don’t say I never do anything for you, ducklings. Sebagai khidmat sosial dari aku, here’s a quick and simple test to see if these two movies – Afdlin Shauki’s double whammy Buli Balik and Baik Punya Cilok – are must-see events untuk dipenselkan dalam kalendar kau:

Katak.

Well? Adakah sepatah perkataan tu buat kau tergolek-golek sampai bawah meja? Naik stimkah minda kau dengan segala macam posibiliti kekelakaran perkataan tu? Kalau jawabnya ya, nah apa tunggu lagi, ayuh ayunkan buntutmu ke pawagam sekarang jugak.

Kalau kau tak gelak dan masih terpinga-pinga, wondering what the frickin’ heck is going on, well, apa kejadahnya yang boleh aku katakan, dude. Kelab ni tak sesuai untuk orang yang sentiasa propah, PC dan kaya dengan sensibiliti sivil ke-Eropahan – uhuk! Square – macam kau.

See, the thing is, if you are a true blue Melayu, then the mere mention of certain words or use of particular images is enough to make you pee. This is important to know before you hand over your red notes, because Afdlin has crammed his two movies with many of these automatic triggers. So kalau kau jenis yang tak boleh appreciate betapa lawaknya the word “katak” tu, then a lot of things happening in these films might just pass you by.

In case kau terlalu malas nak google (maklumlah, hidup zaman moden sudah cukup mencabar dan terlalu mencuri masa kau), atau jalan cerita tu penting sangat untuk kau walaupun sebenarnya ia tak perlu untuk filem sebegini, ni hah aku cut and paste-kan untuk kau:

Buli Balik ‘Taking off six months after the events in the first movie, Nordin ran into his childhood bully, Roy, who is supposed to be dead (after the accident in the first instalment). It turns out that Roy survived the horrible crash, but has lost all his memories. Now that Nordin is inferior to Roy, will he take advantage of this situation and turn the tables around? Or will he really help Roy recover his memory?”

Baik Punya Cilok “A comedy about the misadventures of five fishing mates – Abe, Bob, Jerry, Wak and Leman – who want to rob a pawnshop towkay to get an antique brooch belonging to Wak’s grandmother, which he sold to get married.”

Filem-filem ni ada genesis yang agak lurus dari filem Buli yang juga dibikin Afdlin. Melainkan jalan cerita, resepi kedua-duanya sebenarnya sama saja: mulakan dengan ensemble casting, gaulkan joke-joke Melayu klasik yang disesuaikan dengan situasi semasa, taruk penataan dan editing yang agak hip. Goreng secukup rasa.

Kalaulah kita sekarang berada di Amerika dan kedua-dua filem ini adalah air tangan pengarah berambut perang dan bermata kelabu, mungkin juga aku akan pigeonhole-kan genre kedua filem ini sebagai black comedy-slash­-physical comedy.

Malangnya, kita (I mean, aku, of course) di Malaysia. Dan di sini, di tanah bertuah ini, “black comedy” adalah frasa yang meaningless.

Sebab, memang komedi Melayu adalah hitam-legam dan morbid belaka sifatnya, beb. It’s how we like it (maybe even, for some of us, the only way we can appreciate it). The less refined the better. Anything other than that is just… weird. Sanitised. Boring giler. Tak rock.

Contohnya: who else would think the idea of a reality TV show bertajuk “Siapa Kalah Kena Karan” (dimana peserta yang gagal menjawab dengan betul will be electrocuted) is hilariously funny stuff? Satu panggung pecah dengan gelak ketawa wa cakap lu.

Jadinya, nonton filem-filem ini sepatutnya buat aku rasa macam batik dipangkuan kain batik lusam arwah nenek aku, sebab ini selimut selesa yang familier bagi aku. Entahlah. Maybe I’m just being such a Reviewer. But 10 minutes into each movie I got the sinking feeling that, oh boy, this is gonna be one longgg night.

Oh yeah, the films had their moments, to be sure. There were some surprises, even, and one or two memorable one-liners (“Eh, geli tetek aku,” kata karekter AC Mizal dalam Buli Balik bila handfon dalam kocek baju dia vibrate. Wakaka. Priceless. And Awie’s comedic gift was as delightful as it was unexpected, to say the least; mungkinkah Baik Punya Cilok akan mem-Pulp Fiction-kan ke-Travolta-an Awie?)

Dalam Buli Balik juga misalnya, janganlah kau pergi ke tandas waktu cameo Adlin Aman Ramlie ke udara (in two spots, both in the last third). Apa yang boleh aku katakan? This dude freakin’ rocks. He reminds me of his late, gifted father, A. R. Tompel. If Tompel had gone to acting school, that is. Meaning to say, Adlin mengangkat komedi spontan anugerah genetiknya one classy level higher. Whereas Tompel’s genius was pure “feel”, bak kata mat rock yang memetik gitar, Adlin’s performance has a certain… intellectuality.

But overall, these moments are just that: moments. And too few and far between, to boot. (And let’s not even mention the customary out-of-focus shots. It’s beginning to turn into some kind of hallowed tradition.) As for the rest…

Filem-filem ni buat aku rasa macam, eh dah pernah tengok ni semua, tapi kat mana ye? Bak kata Neo dalam  The Matrix, “Whoa. Deja vu.” Meminjam metafora lain*, kali ni dari volleyball, setupnya aku dah boleh baca lama sebelum attacker meloncat untuk buat spike. In this way it is much like the majority of American sitcoms – some of which may have contributed ideas to these two films. Which makes watching most of these two films a vapid exercise for me.

(*Nota: If you think writers should not be mixing metaphors, then you’ve probably never read hikayat-hikayat Melayu and your brain is not sophisticated enough. I mean, like, stop being so Western-centric, yo’.)

To be sure, bak kata sorang mamat yang sangat pintar yang seperti biasa aku lupa namanya siapa, mana ada benda yang ori lagi dalam dunia pasca-moden ni (unless you’re a lawyer for the RIAA atau RIM, I suppose). Semuanya pastiche, bebarang lapuk pinjam-pinjaman yang sekadar diperbarukan.

Begitu juga kesnya dengan filem-filem ni. Kedua-duanya buat aku terfikir, “Alamak ai, tulang kelakar kaum aku tak evolve-evolve langsung ke sejak zaman P Ramlee dulu?”, disebabkan roh yang hampir sebijik imbuing their very being.

Nothing wrong with that, per se. “Joke Melayu” bagi aku adalah shortcut pada sesuatu yang bangang dan juvenil, which is not necessarily a bad thing (Tuhan dan ex-girlfriend aku saja yang tahu aku sendiri sangat bangang dan juvenil). Tapi dalam gelanggang ini bagi aku filem-filem seperti Mami Jarum dan Gila-Gila Pengantin does it so much better.

It is almost obvious to me that these two new films try very hard to not be like “those” Malay comedies. Mungkin sebab latarbelakang urbana-kosmopolitan pengarah/penulisnya menjadikannya begitu. Apapun, memang ada attempt untuk menghembus nafas moden ke dalam genre yang tak lapuk dimakan masa di kalangan niggers aku ni.

Cuma pada aku momen-momen modernising di dalamnya tak cukup kental untuk buat kau rasa, yeah, I think this bugger’s just created a whole new thing here. Which is a shame. Sebab both times aku masuk panggung expecting a lot out of this burly chap.

Tapi – dan besar tapinya tu – this might all just be me. Sebab, mamat-mamat dan minah-minah dikeliling aku, on the other hand, were all falling about throughout the shows. Nyata sekali – and the ticket sales bear this out, somewhat – the films hit the right spot with them. Mereka lulus ujian “katak” dengan cemerlang. Bully for them.

And bully for Afdlin. Maknanya dia, jauh lebih dari aku, punya jari yang kemas atas pulsa apa yang massa inginkan di Malaysia ini. So in that aspect, at least, these films succeed.

~~~

Ruhayat X adalah Milo yang dihidangkan percuma dari belakang van untuk dinikmati kanak-kanak sekolah rendah.

First Published: 09.02.2006 on Kakiseni

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