Title : Dari Jemapoh Ke Manchestee
Year : 2001
Director : Hishamuddin Rais
Script/Screenplay : Hishamuddin Rais
Cast : Indra Syahril, Zulkarnain Ibrahim, Azizul Akma, Fariza Azlina, etc.

Reviewer : S. B. Toh

Carpe diem! it’s exuberant

Perhaps it is only to be expected that ISA detainee Hishamuddin Rais’ debut feature film would get tangled up in politics and end up being dismissed. Ah, it’s his politics and not his art that draws the audience to Dari Jemapoh ke Manchestee.

This certainly was the case with Abdul Rahman Koya’s purported review of the film in Malaysiakini, in which he dismissed the film as “deafening dullness” and “rubbish” despite not watching the film to its conclusion. So atrocious was the film, the writer made an almost comical escape midway through to the great reprieve that was Rush Hour 2.

Funny, and I thought Hishamuddin’s film was the best movie to have come out of Malaysia since god knows what.

In fact, I would go so far as to call Jemapoh an accomplished film and a work of art. Technically speaking, the film is competent and there is not the usual Indie film complaint about bad lighting, sound and cinematography, while the unknown cast prove themselves to be natural. But what makes the film special is that it is conceptually rich and resonates with Malaysian currents. There is a lot more to this film than the apparently simple plot lets on.

Jemapoh is that unique film that manages to be both light and weighty, entertaining but thought-provoking, subtle but in its own way subversive.

The story is basically about a bunch of young people who are so stifled by the stale atmosphere of their hometown that they decide to see the world. There is Mafiz who is seeking the long-lost father who has exiled himself to England (an off-screen cameo by the director?) and football-mad Yadi who dreams of meeting his idol, George Best, in Manchester.

When a Volvo falls into their lap, so to speak, Yadi steals the car (“borrow” he insists) and the two friends hit the road, determined to drive all the way to England. Along the way, they pick up a rocker and a girl who are both running away from trouble. Together, the quartet try to escape Jemapoh, dodging oppressive adults en route in the forms of a pimp, some politically-connected fascists, a deranged dam keeper who accuses them of maksiat and the ever-present police.

Things don’t tie up neatly in Jemapoh: the youths want to drive to Manchester, yet they are ignorant of the logistics this entails, including a valid passport; the police chase them but don’t seem particularly keen to catch them; they hit the road but seem only to be driving in circles and getting nowhere, often re-encountering the same players; in the uplifting finale, their car soars magically into the sky.

Where’s the logic? What’s the significance?

Jemapoh is not strictly speaking a “realistic film” that adheres to the filmic definition of everyday life while manipulating it cinematically to entertain us, please us, persuade us that although what it presents isn’t real, it could be.. in our wildest or sweetest dreams. In this regard, Yusuf Haslam’s recurring celebrity operas would be more realistic approximations.

The idioms Yusuf utilizes are easily recognizable. Although the numbing treatment may make us tune out, we readily pick up on the hero-villain equation, the love (tri)angle, the banal conflicts and their neat, sunny resolutions. Yet unlike Jemapoh, these films exist in a vacuum, sanitized by Malaysia’s many sensitivities, invariably political or racial, often both, and dictated by crass market forces.

They say nothing about the Malaysian condition beyond the mindless romps of love-lorn pop stars, served with the customary moral lesson that somehow legitimize the illicit pleasures indulged in. Because these films are divorced from reality, there is no vitality to speak of. Honesty and passion are rare commodities in Malaysian cinema and so what we get on a regular basis is the death of imagination flickering unself-consciously before our eyes.

Which brings us to Jemapoh, a film that seems to exist within its own little world. If one reads the film very literally, one may well be put off by its seeming illogic. (A.R. Koya’s aversion to the film stems mainly from this.) But use your imagination a little and the film will prove to be a richly realized work – a work of imagination that speaks to the universal yearning for freedom, for change, for a life less restrained.

Dari Jemapoh ke Manchestee is basically a fable, an allegorical tale that urges young people everywhere (and everywhen) to seize the day.

Certainly, one can discern a timeless quality about the film. The question of which era the story is set in is an interesting one and difficult to pin down. The football icon Yadi worships is not any one of MU’s current crop of millionaire players but belongs in the 60s. The car they “borrow” is a classic Volvo (no modern cars are glimpsed), and the one sympathetic older character they meet is a policeman who wears a uniform that is no longer in use today.

Yet the film’s sensibilities are contemporary, if not universal. If Hishamuddin’s story seems to be caught in a time warp, it is also timeless –– a rousing anthem to youths and the young-at-heart.

I would argue that Hishamuddin’s film is essentially an expressionist work –– it doesn’t so much take place in a reality “out there” as occurs inside the filmmaker’s head. Seen this way, many things in the film are in fact symbolic representations.

The unchanging Jemapoh may well stand for Malaysia’s entrenched ways of doing things contrary to the evolving trends of the world. There’s the mad dam keeper they run into, and we all know that the damnable dam carries many negative connotations. The motorcycle gang our heroes keep bumping into is symbolic of the restlessness of youth. The devotion to the football of MU suggests a common and universal language.

As for the homosexual subtext (“Aku tak suka perempuan; dia orang tak tau main bola”) you’ll have to draw your own conclusion. Amir Muhammad says it could be a metaphor for other types of freedom, and he’s probably right.

If you locate Hishamuddin’s film within the East-West debate we are so fond of getting into and critically examine the film’s wistful yearnings for things Western, perhaps there is something to be said of our hypocritical appropriation of western forms while neglecting the spirit behind them.

The fact that the protagonists hijack a Volvo from an old man and are bent on somehow driving it back to “Manchestee, somewhere near Germany” can be construed as a return to the basics –– no matter that they don’t know where to begin. What basics, you ask? Democracy, transparent governance, rule of law; who knows? The film is rich enough to accommodate such readings and crafty enough not be bound by them.

But for all the fancy reading, what carries the film through at the end of the day is its zest for life and its sweet temperament. It’s a political film that purrs instead of hectoring us, and that’s just fine.

Everything said, Hishamuddin Rais is a far cleverer filmmaker than A.R. Koya is a critic. I’m considerably more taken by the middle-aged filmmaker’s exuberance and idealism than his young critic’s half-cocked cynicism.

Let’s hope Hishamuddin emerges from his detention unbroken and continues to make films we can be proud of.

Source : The Star Online (1/9/2001)