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One of ARTERI’s commitment is to trawl the cyberspace in search of video works from Southeast Asia that are uploaded onto youtube or other video channels and bring them to our readers’ attention.
The inaugural entry for this series highlights excerpts from Ming Wong’s Four Malay Stories, commissioned in 2005 for Labilabu, a two-man exhibition with Khairuddin Hori as part of Pesta Raya Malay Cultural Festival at the Esplanade, Singapore.
More information about Ming Wong can be found on his website at http://www.mingwong.org/
According to the artist, Four Malay Stories is:
‘Inspired by the work of Malay showbiz icon P Ramlee, a Malay Muslim who made over 60 movies from the 50s to 70s in Singapore and Malaysia. His popularity spanned across all racial divide and social strata, and his memory is often evoked as a beacon for cultural pluralism and racial harmony.
For this series the artist has re-created key scenes from four of P Ramlee’s best known films, playing a total of 16 different characters from a comedy, a melodrama, a social drama and a Malay period drama.
Many of the chosen lines are classic quotations that have entered the popular lexicon of Malay society.
Relying on his limited knowledge of the Malay language, the artist can be seen repeating his lines in repeated takes of the same scene, along with a simultaneous transcription and literal translation in English in the subtitles – as in a foreign language instructional video.
The work traces the artist’s attempt in adopting a ‘foreign’ language and cultural traits, albeit in ways that are deliberately nostalgic, melodramatic, poetic or out-dated.’
* * *
Se Merah Padi / The village of Semerah Padi (1956) A Malay period drama in which a warrior has to face the pushishment of God for fornicating with the village chief’s daughter who is betrothed to his best friend.
Labu dan Labi / Labu and Labi (1962) A cook and a chauffeur in a rich household dream that they are a doctor and mahistrate going after their boss’s daughter.
Ibu Mertua Ku / My Mother-in-Law (1962)
In this classic melodrama a saxophone player, Kassim Selamat, is tricked by his evil rich mother-in-law into divorcing her daughter.
Doktor Rushdi (1971) A controversial film dealing with themes of lust, adultery and murder. A sexually frustrated wife of a busy doctor begins an affair; the doctor fakes his death to seek his revenge. P Ramlee had this reply on sex and nudity in the film: “… the sex scenes were respectable, not wild and within any normal person’s sanity”.
For more information, please visit http://www.mingwong.org/4malaystories.htm
(SS)
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Ha~Ha…. Fun le. watch it many times already,still enjoy it!!
Haven’t read this entry yet, but on the front page, but regarding the purple background linking to this entry: It’s hard to read the details, the colour is too dark.
Han
Hi Han,
Glad you stopped by. I know that the colors can make it a tough to read text immediately on the front page. The site generates new colors each time it reloads, some of them are quite dark. However, if you hover your cursor over the post, the background turns white and you can read clearly. We’re still tweaking the mechanics of the site and hopefully will improve.
Thanks and keep on checking in!
Sharon
I had the good fortune to see Ming Wong’s exhibition Vain Efforts at Gallery 4A in Sydney’s Chinatown last week.
Four Malay Stories was being exhibited in the entrance gallery. Upstairs, were two wall projections of key scenes from Fassbinder films, titled Angst Essen/Eat Fear and Learn German with Petra Von Kant.
As soon as I walked in and watched Ibu Mertuaku, I could not stop laughing. Wong’s aping of foreign languages, Malay and German, verges on the ham but his earnestness keeps pulling us away from this conclusion. I use the word ‘aping’ because he mouths the words without the correct inflections, so it’s quite humourous.
The idea of aping a culture appealed to me most, because most of the time we talk about cultures being consumed, but all of us in turn inhabit the cultures we consume. We reenact as Wong does; we replay, mimic and simulate in our daily lives.
Interestingly, this exhibition was tied in with the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras; at first, I couldn’t think for what reason except that Wong cross-dresses in the videos. Haha. But the videos are about trying to get a grip on what we don’t quite understand. For sure, the subject matter of the videos, such as Ibu Mertuaku and Eat Fear (a cross-cultural love story) deal with fear, ignorance and misunderstanding.
Wong allows a makeshift quality to his productions. For example, baldcap lines are comically apparent, and a mannequin stands in during a make-out scene. In his Fassbinder video where two characters dance on the screen, he uses human beings as stand-ins in a very novel way! And when he plays a German woman, he bulks up his body, filling it out into a hefty fraü frame.
But where the videos lack production polish, Wong fills it out with his unique performance. This ‘bare bones’ simulation, involving only key props, is like how our memory functions, picking out only the essential bits, and sometimes even the random bits seem essential. It’s like how we build our understanding, well, of anything, really.
Hi Lydia!
Thanks for stopping by and for the insightful comment that constitutes a post for ARTERI in itself. You are good value for money, my friend! Do contribute a few entries if you’re at all inclined! You know where I and Simon live.
I remember being shown Four Malay Stories for the first time in the home-studio of Khairuddin Hori. I loved it like crazy. The comic timing of the broken Malay and repeated takes was perfect.
If this was shown in Malaysia, I wonder what the reaction would be.
I’m sorry, but who is ‘admin’? Sharon? :D
yalor. The ‘admin’ handle validates me.
Oh you’re lucky to be able to see Ming Wong’s take on Ali Fear East the Soul. It’s one of my favourite movie and my entry point to Fassbinder :D
– Simon
Simon, I was put off Fassbinder after watching In a Year of 13 Moons. It’s one of those things everyone I know loves but that I just don’t get.
hi simon and eva….
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Hello Agung, thanks for the link! It looks awesome. What’s with indonesia and the whole concept of battle/pertempuran?? :D
Hello guys!
I’m showing ‘Four Malay Stories’ to the world at this year’s Venice Biennale! Come visit the Singapore pavilion!
best wishes
ming wong
Hey Ming Wong,
Congrats! Am thrilled for you!
Now, are you going to fly me to Venice?? :D
– Simon