{"id":27857,"date":"2001-10-17T14:12:00","date_gmt":"2001-10-17T14:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/?p=27857"},"modified":"2023-12-07T13:31:17","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T13:31:17","slug":"smorgasbord-a-z-of-spinning-gasing-rampai-sari-spinning-gasing-dari-a-ke-z","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/articles\/2001\/10\/smorgasbord-a-z-of-spinning-gasing-rampai-sari-spinning-gasing-dari-a-ke-z\/","title":{"rendered":"Smorgasbord: A-Z of Spinning Gasing (Rampai Sari: “Spinning Gasing” dari A ke Z)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Klik di sini untuk versi Bahasa Malaysia yang diterjemahkan oleh\nAbd. Latiff Bidin.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A is for ARIFF. A campy Malay\ncharacter played by Edwin Sumun, which explains why the campiness is more\nconvincing than the Malayness. I kept waiting for him to come out with the\nrevelation that he was an adopted child but no such disclosure was forthcoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B is for BUDGET. Sure, the price-tag\nis RM2.5 million, but compared to more expensive movies like “Syukur\n21″(RM 3.5 million) and “Silat Legenda” (RM 5 million), the\nproduction values are a wow. The care and professionalism with which this film\nwas made should be inspiring to all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C is for CHANTAL. Spoiled French-Chinese\nchanteuse, played by Corinne Adri. Utters one of the film’s best lines (the\nwitch-like ”You deserve to be punished by Allah!’) and also one of its worst\n(the thesaurus-like ”You two cannot campur, impossible to mix.’)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

D is for DRUGS. Famed songwriter\nLoloq plays the first lovable drug-peddler I have seen in a Malaysian film.\nThis embrace of a constituency that would otherwise be cast aside as a\nvillainous Other is a tribute to the film’s generosity of spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

E is for ENGLISH. Finally, a\nbig-budget Malaysian film in English! It feels more natural than “Mimpi\nMoon” but some of the phrasing is still awkward. ”You were named after a\npolitician?” asks Yati incredulously. No Malaysian would refer to Lee Kwan\nYew merely as “a politician.” Were lines like these meant more for\nclueless foreigners than for the rest of us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

F is for FOLEY. Pay attention to the\nway objects sound — a suitcase placed on the floor, a key twisting in the\nlock. These were done with great care in the post-production stage at a sound\nstudio in Australia. The sound quality is top-notch since the foley-work is\nintricate and full, and the dialogue recorded on location rather than through\nhollow dubbing. It’s about time Malaysia produced films that were a treat for\nthe ears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

G is for GANGSTERS. In black leather\nand pretty tattoos, they looked like they stepped off the set of the current\nLeon Lai movie “Bullets of Love.” The fact that they were stylised\nfelt like a betrayal of the film’s tone, and their presence in the final reel\nwas too much of a deus ex machina. I’m beginning to think that it’s too easy to\nuse kooky villains (the dam-keeper in “Dari Jemapoh ke Manchestee”,\nthe three-testicled guy in “Lips to Lips”) to get narrative closure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

H is for HARRY LEE. The leader of\nthe band, a young Chinese man determined to prove his father wrong.\nUnfortunately the actor appears to be a graduate of the Keanu Reeves School of\nDramatic Art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I is for ISLAM. Yati’s line,\n“If you convert, you will no longer be you,” acknowledges the sterile\nand life-denying way our official religion is enshrined here. It’s a problem\nwhen converts are expected to ruthlessly cut off their pre-Islamic heritage,\nalthough the religion has historically proven, in this region, to be a\nheterogeneous and porous entity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J is for JJ, an Indian man who is\nsort of the band mascot, much in the way that Chris Rock or Martin Lawrence\nwill play the funny and non-threatening darkie. His Atomic Jaya-derived line\n“Indians always get the blame!” is sure to get one of the biggest\nlaughs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

K is for KLCC. A visual trope in\nalmost all local movies now. Here it’s the backdrop against which Yati sells\nfake watches. I very much like the mocking juxtaposition between grubby reality\nand shiny aspirations. A beautiful shot, in more ways than one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

L is for LEMBAGA PENAPISAN FILEM.\nOur censors have worked overtime in removing references to religion and sex\nfrom this film. In several instances, the cuts actually make the plot seem more\nlurid that it actually is. When Yati goes over to merely hug Harry, the hug is\ntaken out, making us assume all manner of cross-cultural bodily builds were\nexchanged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M is for MISCEGENATION. The theme of\ninter-racial romance has been handled before in films like ”Tsu-Feh\nSofiah” and “Fenomena,” but “Spinning Gasing” is the\nfirst to highlight the incompatibility than can arise from religious beliefs.\nAlthough the treatment is not in-depth, it remains an important step in\nbringing our movies slightly closer to our real lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

N is for NICOTINE. Erra Fazira only\nsmokes in “Gerak Khas The Movie” when she’s pretending to be a\nhooker. Here, Yati smokes to show her nervousness while going to the airport to\ngreet Harry. You might think it’s no big deal, but it’s a telling indication of\nthe little things that separate this movie from the admittedly entertaining\noeuvre of Yusof Haslam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O is for OBVIOUSNESS. I can’t get over the way Ariff asks a boy who has a fishing rod dipped into the sea whether he is catching fish. Was Ariff too much of a dumb urbanite to know what’s going on, was he merely flirting, or was Teek Tan doing a Harith Iskander-style spoof of the way Malaysians always ask obvious questions? Similarly, although the Malaysian-born Harry spent 8 years overseas, is it possible that he would not know what khalwat means? These are the bits that seem more like cultural primers than story-telling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P is for PHOTOGRAPHY. Teoh Gay Hian\nis the hottest cinematographer in our little world. The images look very good\nbut there is a tendency towards postcard prettiness that is only offset when\nthe shot, such as the KLCC one, has an internal irony. There are some moments\nin his earlier “Perempuan Melayu Terakhir” (such as Heikal rowing in\nfront of the mosque) that I also liked a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q is for QUALITY. That elusive\nsomething that we always feel is lacking in local movies. “Spinning\nGasing” has proven that production values can be bought with money, but I\nthink that “Jogho” and “Dari Jemapoh ke Mancestee”, despite\nloose editing, stiff camera-work and bog-standard sound, had a greater sense of\npersonality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

R is for ROLEX. This and Maggi Mee\nare the two products prominently named in the movie. I am not sure if they were\nsponsors, but the fact that one is famously expensive and foreign, while the\nother famously cheap and local, fits well into the theme of reconciling\nopposites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S is for SPINNING GASING. The\ntraditional top is given prominence in the title as a metaphor for life: once\nit stops moving, it falls down. A society in dynamic flux is preferable to a\nstatic orthodoxy of safe assumptions. The fact that the title has two languages\nis also a tribute to the polymorphousness that has the potential to become\nMalaysia’s greatest asset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

T is for TERENGGANU. This state has\nfor some reason become a popular locale for stories of cultural conflict and\nreligious fundamentalism (“Fenomena”, “Perempuan Melayu\nTerakhir”, “Syahadat.’) It’s a pity that in the scene with Yati’s\nfamily, everyone chooses to speak in bland KL accents rather than the\n“makang ikang” dialect, which would have added greater charm and verisimilitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U is for ULEK MAYANG. The haunting\nfolk-song is given prominence in the soundtrack as a metaphor for impossible\nlove. I found the actual full-dress dance rehearsal on the beach to be\nstrained, especially when Yati goes into her Tourism Malaysia mode by\nexplaining the meaning of the song. This same tune was used to subtler effect\nin the Malay movie “Fenomena”, where it was tied in with the healing\npower of nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

V is for VAN. The poster looks like\nan ad for a miniature one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

W is for WAU. A traditional kite\nthat is not given prominence as a metaphor for anything in “Spinning\nGasing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X is for X-FACTOR. A Malay pop\ngroup, none of whose members are featured in “Spinning Gasing.” In\nfact, the film has no pop stars at all. It has been praised for this brave\ncasting decision. But I wish it could also have dispensed with the ubiquitous\nJalaluddin Hassan. Enough already!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Y is for YATI. The lead female\ncharacter is also the emotional and moral centre of the film. Very well played\nby the expressive and under-stated Ellie Suriaty Omar. If there’s any justice,\nshe will be a huge star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Z is for ZAPIN. A traditional dance that is not given prominence as a metaphor for anything in “Spinning Gasing.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE END. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First Published: 17.10.2001 on Kakiseni <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Klik di sini untuk versi Bahasa Malaysia yang diterjemahkan oleh Abd. Latiff Bidin. A is for ARIFF. A campy Malay character played by Edwin Sumun, which explains why the campiness is more convincing than the Malayness. I kept waiting for him to come out with the revelation that he was an adopted child but no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,3538,3544,3540,3569],"tags":[712,4331,501,557,4328,223,4334,628,4329,4333,4330,1106,502,49,4332,2985],"language":[7531],"writer":[7594],"class_list":["post-27857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-censorship","category-culture","category-film","category-review","tag-censorship","tag-corinne-adri","tag-culture","tag-edwin-sumun","tag-ellie-suriaty-omar","tag-film","tag-film-censorship-board","tag-islam","tag-jalaluddin-hassan","tag-lembaga-penapisan-filem","tag-loloq","tag-pop-culture","tag-religion","tag-review","tag-spinning-gasing","tag-teoh-gay-hian","language-bahasa-melayu","writer-amir-muhammad"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27857"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38765,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27857\/revisions\/38765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27857"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=27857"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=27857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}