Getting into the Heart of Yasmin
By Faridul Anwar Farinordin
YASMIN AHMAD
Yasmin Ahmad’s TV commercials and movies are touching and funny, and deal with multi-racial harmony honestly, writes FARIDUL ANWAR FARINORDIN.
Her works embrace unity and racial integration themes in colours that are soft, warm, passionate and inviting, but director Yasmin Ahmad doesn’t set out with this mission in mind.
Known for her TV commercials, she paints the united colours of Malaysia in ways that viewers have never seen before. Funny, insightful, touching and heartwarming, they deal with multi-racial harmony in striking honesty and raw truthfulness.
“I think there is no such thing as a creative person. The best of artistes are those who observe,” said the director who recently won the Gold Award at the Cannes Advertising Festival for her work Tan Hong Ming In Love.
The TV commercial, part of last year’s Merdeka campaign by Petronas, features an interview with a Chinese schoolboy who admits to having a crush on his Malay classmate Umi Qazrina.
Tan Hong Ming is inspired from an earlier TV ad she wrote, Why Do I Like My House?, which features an off-the-cuff interview with a boy who loves his home. Made in conjunction with Merdeka celebrations, it was directed by Nang Siddigu, Yasmin’s “teacher and mentor”.
“I learn a lot from Nang. Together with Kamal Mustafa, another director in the advertising world whom I respect, they are my mentors,” said Yasmin, who has written or directed more than 50 TV commercials for national and international markets.
Naturally, her works find their way into viewers’ hearts when they are aired on TV in conjunction with Hari Raya, Chinese New Year and Deepavali, apart from those she made for Merdeka celebration.
The first work that Yasmin wrote and directed was the 1996 Merdeka TV commercial Kasut Gombak, featuring Ashraf Sinclair and Vanidah Imran. It tells of a teenager on a bus who wears Malaysian- made shoes, daydreaming of marrying the sweet girl he sees on board.
Simple stories that tug at the heartstrings have always been her signature style, blending drama and humour to convey emotions. Carrying national pride, they reflect everyday Malaysians and their experiences.
“When I write a story, I weave together experiences and events that were laid by God in my path. They are all personal things and have strong meanings in my life,” said Yasmin, who attended a non- Malay school in Muar, Johor.
She recalled another Merdeka TV commercial, Little Indian Boy – made for Petronas in 1997 – which is one of her favourite works.
Narrated by a man, it is a black-and-white memoir of a boy who wakes up early in the morning to follow his father on the latter’s bicycle to a place he has never been before. It is packed with so many people and he can’t see anything, until his father hoists him on his shoulder. Together, they shout “Merdeka!”
“I believe that we can promote unity and racial integration on TV by focusing on a minority ethnic group. Little Indian Boy reminds us that the Indian community was there when Malaysia was born, together with the Malays.”
Yasmin, who is in Ipoh shooting a movie Talentime, said Tan Hong Ming In Love (made for Leo Burnett Malaysia), which has amassed more than 21 advertising awards from all over the world, was an observation of love and friendship.
Her most recent TV ads that embrace unity are made for ntv7. Titled Tai-Chi and Resurrection, they are comedies with a big heart.
Resurrection focuses on a Chinese family at a hospital who resuscitates an elderly member of the family by switching on the TV channel, while Tai-Chi is about the Chinese martial arts master who hurries through his class (comprising members from different ethnic backgrounds) to catch his favourite TV show.
“I think I have a warped sense of humour,” she said with a laugh, adding that she admires works by Charlie Chaplin and “other intelligent physical comedies”. Describing her work, which has elements of drama and comedy, she said: “Life is a combination of drama and comedy. In comedy, there is drama and in drama there is comedy.” She wrote (but didn’t direct) Friends Again for Petronas in conjunction with the 1996 Kongsi Raya celebration. It was her first TV commercial that had a racial integration theme.
“It is about the friendship between a Chinese boy and a Malay girl in a kampung.”
He pulls an upih pinang (the leaf sheath of the betelnut palm) with her sitting on it,” she said, adding “it inspired my first movie, Sepet.”
What matters most in her work is the heart of the story. “I don’t consciously set out to make a film that promotes unity. This is where people often make mistakes because the messages would come out heavy handed and unrealistic. It even puts people off.”
And what is the source of inspiration for her work?
“My life. When I have a story in my head, I don’t take long to write it. Friends Again took only half hour to write.”
She agrees that some directors, thinking that her signature unity- embracing film-making style can be copied to attract the younger audience, have taken a similar approach to their stories. Unfortunately, they’re met with miserable results.
“You can’t do it for motives other than telling a good story, I don’t want to sound lofty, but my works are about finding the glory of God through humanity.
“You play around with the characters and a compassion comes through. And compassion comes from God. I am not pious or anything, but this is the way I see it.”
Commenting on the success of Tan Hong Ming abroad, she said: “I think it’s the simplicity and charm that people’s hearts. I only followed God’s direction. I observed. When I picked the award at the Asia Pacific Advertising Awards (for film direction), I felt so undeserving because I hadn’t done anything.
“What makes something like Tan Hong Ming work with the world audience is something that nobody, including myself, can lay claim to. It’s all God’s glory.”
Like her TV commercials, Yasmin’s films are partially autobiographical, snapshots of her experiences and emotions while growing up. Inevitably, they deal with race relations in the most subtle yet effective manner, where many other film-makers have tried and failed.
Naming Japanese director Yoji Yamada as one of her many favourites, she said she likes Yamada’s work as “they deal with people who are flawed”.
Yamada is known for his Tora-san series (about a travelling merchant), known in Japan under the title Otoko wa tsurai yo (“It’s tough being a man”).
In one of the Tora-san series, she said the sculptor, who works with clay, shares his secret to a beautiful work: “My job is to dig until a form appears. There is something inside a clay that is waiting to be discovered. I am just an ordinary person who is weak.”
For Yasmin, the same principle applies in film-making. “When I write a script or try to flesh out characters in the story, it’s important to dig into myself and the people around me, until God’s beauty appears.”
How does she know when that moment comes?
“You just do. The hair at the back of your neck stands and you feel overwhelmed,” she said, giving an example of a scene in her first feature film Sepet when the main character Jason lays his head on his mother’s lap shortly after his mother learns that he is in love with a Malay girl.
“I cried when I was writing it. My crew cried when we were shooting the scene and when the film was played in cinemas, the audience cried, too,” she said, referring to the human emotions present in that simple act of a mother’s unconditional love.
“We all cried because we were touched by God’s love and kindness. And I can’t take credit for making the scene work because all I did was observe, all I did was dig.”
(c) 2008 New Straits Times. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.