With Sharifah Amani and a new batch of actors in tow, Yasmin Ahmad heads for Ipoh to shoot her fifth film, Muallaf.
It was the last day of production, and it was going to be a long day. But Yasmin Ahmad looked reasonably happy. The preceding 10 days had been a success as far as she was concerned. The film that she had been talking about for the past one year, Muallaf (The Convert), had finally become a reality. There we were in front of a pub in Ipoh at 2am, and despite the crew rushing to prepare for the scenes, the atmosphere was very relaxed.
It had rained all day just hours before, yet miraculously, the skies cleared just as shooting was about to begin.
The director approached her actors for last minute instructions while the imposing first assistant director Pete Abdullah, affectionately known as Uncle Pete, watched over everything with a keen eye for detail. Executive producer Rosnah Kassim was all smiles, and so was post-producer Elyna Shukri.
Later, before the second scene inside the pub, the sound guy rushed over to adjust the microphone, strung on actress Yeo Yann Yann’s chest.
“Aiyah, still want to adjust cleavage ah? No need lah!” Yasmin quipped.
Four films after she started out, nothing seems to have changed. A Yasmin Ahmad film shoot is still the craziest thing anyone could experience. Her MHz Film “family” remain a close-knit and jovial lot. Their pre-production preparations are almost legendary. Yasmin once told me: “I rehearse with my actors a lot. That’s why when I’m on set, I just lepak.”
And lepak she did. After a scene was shot, there would be either discussions with her assistant director or cinematographer Keong Low over the walkie-talkie, or just one line from her: “I’m happy with it if Keong’s happy with it.”
The one thing about Yasmin that many people know, but is rarely mentioned, is that she is a part-time filmmaker, but a full-time executive creative director with an advertising firm. She has to get official leave from work just to make her films. It is almost like a hobby. Ask her about it, and she will only say she feels extremely lucky to be able to do this and have so much creative freedom in the process, a luxury some full-time filmmakers can only dream of.
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Yasmin Ahmad and Sharifah Amani. – Picture by LIM SOK LIN |
Muallaf is her fifth film, and fourth theatrical feature (Rabun was a telemovie made for TV3). As with all her previous films, Yasmin entices us with clues and bits of the story but never the whole picture. We know that it’s about two sisters, Rohani and Rohana (played by real-life siblings Sharifah Amani and Sharifah Aleysha), who run away from an abusive father (Datuk Rahim Razali), and meet a Catholic teacher (Brian Yap). We know that it’s about childhood trauma, and hope and forgiveness. But where is the muallaf in all of this? Your guess is as good as mine.
It all might sound controversial, in light of some recent cases involving religious issues. But Yasmin assures viewers that Muallaf is far from controversial. In fact, three personnel from the religious department visited one of the locations at a church but found nothing amiss. Apparently, some people had complained about seeing a group of Muslim students near the church, and this had prompted the religious department to investigate. But Yasmin said they left after finding out that it was only a film shoot.
“It is not a religious story at all,” she said of Muallaf. “It’s about coping with a difficult past, how we all have crap in our lives. It’s about how different people cope with it differently. Some cope by being hateful and shutting themselves in. Some cope by forgiving, others by being brave. This is about how the brave help draw out those who shut themselves in and help them reconcile with their ghosts.”
The pub shoot ended at 6am, and after a few hours’ sleep, the crew was back at it again at 10am, this time at an unoccupied bungalow belonging to Tenaga Nasional Bhd. The occasion was the all-important and much-publicised shaving of Amani’s head. During the ride to the location, I asked Amani how she felt.
“Very nervous!” she said, and she looked so.
It was an extremely long wait for the crew to set up the scene, and an even longer wait for Amani’s hair to be shorn by a barber. No one was allowed upstairs where the shaving was done, but someone reported that she was laughing and crying at the same time. When the scene was finally shot, it was incredibly moving.
Without giving anything away, it is enough to say for now that when audiences finally see the two sisters praying side-by-side, there will be a truly memorable movie moment when Amani removes her telekung.
Amani was already wearing her hair short for the rest of the film, but now with her head completely bald, Yasmin thought she looked even more beautiful.
Asked how she felt putting her actress through such a difficult situation, Yasmin only replied: “She is like my own anak. It hurts me if it hurts her.”
In fact, Yasmin has worked with all of the Sharifah sisters by now, the last one being Aleysha. She admitted that she wrote the character of Rohana specifically with Aleysha in mind. She said all of the sisters are completely unselfconscious in front of the camera.
“I like (the sisters) because I know them and I know their parents,” said Yasmin. “If I have a problem with them, I scold them. And if they don’t respond, I SMS their parents, and their parents scold them! They call me ‘mak’.”
Earlier in the day, the crew shot a scene in the bungalow involving a real-life convert and his family. It was a short scene of them praying, which provides a clue as to what Yasmin is really trying to say with this latest film.
“I know so many muallaf who converted after falling in love with Muslim women,” she explained.
“Many of these muallaf I know who got into the religion because of love became really, really good Muslims. I think God pulls us towards Him whichever way He pleases, and it’s not for human beings to say what is the right way and what is not.”
-Full credit to ALLAN KOAY-
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The legendary Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) has introduced me to the pivotal aspect of writings, drawings, paintings, and poetry. The nature of arts comes from God. Often people say that they don't have any sense of arts inside. I believe they lose their bearings in realizing or searching for the correct direction. God always speaks to humans by giving different kind of signs thru everything around us, and it's our job to figure it out, take it, analyze it, and use it as efficient as we could. However, sometimes we are blinded by the things we choose as priorities, putting aside His rules and orders.
