Yasmin Ahmad - The Filmmaker

I have always liked Yasmin Ahmad, the award winning film maker. Her Petronas advertisements have always captured the essence of our multi-cultural Malaysian experience, and they stay in your subconscious for a long time. I dare say many Malaysians are fans.

Who can forget her commercial on the rude young Malay executive on the LRT prompting some MPs in Parliament to castigate her for showing the ‘polite’ Malays as rude?Some critics have also damned her for ‘polluting the Malay culture’whatever this means.

Yasmin is honest, she never fails to tell her story playfully with some serious undertones. Her jokes can be racy at times. Maybe, she is a bit too advanced and too well read for the Malaysian public . Too many people want to be heroes , but, they lack the openness she has, which is her strength . Could it be that her courage and her way of thinking is influenced by her own multi-cultural background with some Japanese and Javanese heritage thrown in? And her Chinaman husband ?.

She is a teacher with a student of one at the moment but she is doing her part to educate the cinemagoers into the realities of multi-cultural Malaysia. You have to give her an A+ for this. For thinking Malaysians and foreigners she is a great cultural icon.

So far, all Yasmin’s movies-Sepet, Gubra, Mukhsin reflect the real(west) Malaysian society. The Chinese, the Indians and the Malays are there living side by side, falling in love, having relationships, influencing one another, switching codes with ease. She is saying don’t compartmentalize ourselves, yes, we are of mixed cultures, religions, languages and yet we have one common destiny. She reminds us to be compassionate, let’s love one another despite our differences. There must be a divine reason for these three major Asian cultures to be under one roof. Don’t fight it, go with the flow and enjoy one another, she seems to be saying. For goodness sake, let us celebrate our humanity. Enjoy.

It would be nice if she would incorporate Sabah and Sarawak elements in her future movies thus making them truly Malaysian. The great Borneo story has yet to be told!