Film Journal 2: Abang

The movie” Abang” was produced in 1981 which directed by Datuk Rahim Razali. This film is talking about the protagonist, the eldest brother Fuad want to fulfill his will before he dies in leukemia. In the beginning of film, he comes back from London after leaving from his family for 10 years. Some of his family members are angry and panic while some of them fear or happy. Despite Fuad’s return is not fully welcomed, he talks with his siblings, Faizal and Farid in order to enlighten and encourage them to face their life. Moreover, he also seek for apologize from Mona but Mona refuses to forgive him. After he has completed his mission, he goes back to his hometown and enjoys his life in small village. However, he dies at the end of film after his family members realize that he gets deadly disease.

Basically, this movie explains the hybridity of Malays before Islamic revivalism. There are four forms of hybridity which are cultural, gender, language, and racial. However, there are only three form of hybridity in this movie. First will be the cultural hybridity. Cultural hybridity means that the mixture of the Malay east culture and western culture. It can be represented in their wearing, house design and so on. For example, most characters in the movie except villagers are wearing western style, the protagonist Fuad goes pub and listens his sister’s singing contest, the westernize house design and etc. This also shown the penetration of Islam is still not deep as it clearly makes a clear contrast between city and village. Girls in city are not wearing tudung but girls in village do wear tudung.

Language hybridity is shown in the conversation. They usually speak in mixture of English and Malay. It shows the high education level of Malay during that time as they can speak English and Malay fluently. For example, Faizal said ghost is past in the beginning of movie, Fuad said think when he is persuading Mona and etc. This movie also reflects the racial hybridity that there are different races in one movie. It also clearly portray that Malaysia is a multi-cultural society that all culture are merged together. Moreover, it also shows the openness of Malaysian that willing to accept other cultures. For example, there are Chinese people shown in the elevator scene at the beginning of this movie and Fuad father’s secretary is a Chinese.

Moreover, this movie shares the reviews that implemented to the traditional Malay society and culture which boys are more preferable than girls. It can be shown at the father of Fuad who thinks that his sons join to his company for helping him in his business but he let his daughter to do what her want. It clearly presents authentic masculinity in this film that men are the decision maker. The person representing masculinity is Brother Fuad. He persuades all his younger brothers in the manner of being elder. Moreover, he is the person who solve the problems that exist in the film.

This movie is actually giving a solution to Malay on the question of searching themselves throughout the protagonist, Brother Fuad. This movie use Fuad family to represent the modern Malays that speaks the mixture of Malay and English. Moreover, the director tends to use Brother Fuad as the elder and wiser to guide modern Malay. Brother Fuad has the characteristics of honest, polite, noble, dignity and etc to teach Malays about the manner and moral values that should have in order to be true Malay. For example, the conversations between Fuad, Faizal, Farid and Mona have presented the values and morality to the Malays. After that, the return of Fuad to his hometown, the small village means that they should not forget their origin and to be grateful to where they come from even want to be success and educated.

The editing and camera angle of this movie is reasonable and smooth. Although there is no any dramatic or stylist technique used in the movie, the film makes a smooth and clear editing that audience would easily understand the plot and what is happening in the film. However, the sudden jump cut that found in Youtube is rather serious but could be believed that the jump cut is not the original film that it has but ruined by third party in another time.

I like this movie because it portrays the relationship between siblings which have a strong bond and cannot be interfered by their negative emotions towards their eldest brother. For example, even Farid and Faizal are fear and angry to brother Fuad but they still respect and love their brother, Fuad. In Faizal and Fuad’s conversations, Faizal has said that whole family are still happy when heard his return even they fear or angry or panic. To represent the happiness, he repeats four times of happy instead s of other emotion such as panic, angry and fear.